Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: It's something that should have been done a long time ago.
Speaker 2: Went crazy during the Biden administrative They went totally crazy.
Speaker 2: What they were doing and the money they were giving
Speaker 2: to people that shouldn't be getting it into agencies and
Speaker 2: others that shouldn't be getting it was a shame, tremendous fraud.
Speaker 3: America will become great again if they continue to support
Speaker 3: the poor people, those who are in need of especially
Speaker 3: the medical care. That's what I think.
Speaker 4: Talk to the average American, do they want to see
Speaker 4: people dying because of assistance cut off? You know, there
Speaker 4: would have been a very clear and particular way to
Speaker 4: reform the foreign assistance sector.
Speaker 5: This suspension was immediately effectively, so that means if yesterday
Speaker 5: your employees had to come back the following day to office,
Speaker 5: you had to stop them because you had no money
Speaker 5: to continue with them.
Speaker 6: At the core of this, this is about an anti
Speaker 6: rights agenda. This is not about the economics of making
Speaker 6: countries such as South Africa and other African countries more independent.
Speaker 6: This is a direct attack on the humanity of LGBTQI,
Speaker 6: people of women, of girls, of children, and other marginalized groups.
Speaker 7: One of President Trump's first actions after taking office was
Speaker 7: to take aim at USAID, and last week, more than
Speaker 7: ninety percent of the agency's activities in Africa were told
Speaker 7: to seize, bringing an end to decades of programs tackling
Speaker 7: poverty and diseases like HIV, tuberculosis, and ebola. In this
Speaker 7: special episode of The Next Africa Podcast, we hear from
Speaker 7: our reporters from all corners of the continent about what
Speaker 7: impact this decision is having and how countries and AID
Speaker 7: organizations are responding.
Speaker 8: The future is uncertain because the government of ken actually
Speaker 8: announced that they only have stoke for six months, so if
Speaker 8: they don't do anything right now, it's going to become
Speaker 8: a public health exhastin.
Speaker 7: I'm Jennifer Zabasadja, and this is the Next Africa Podcast,
Speaker 7: bringing you one story each week from the continent driving
Speaker 7: the future of global growth with the context only Bloomberg
Speaker 7: can provide.
Speaker 9: We start this week in West Africa.
Speaker 7: Over the past decade, the US has provided more than
Speaker 7: seven point eight billion dollars in aid to Nigeria, supporting
Speaker 7: everything from agriculture to HIV medication.
Speaker 9: But now this may all stop.
Speaker 7: The Nigerian Foreign Minister Yusuf Tugar gave his reaction to
Speaker 7: Bloomberg earlier this week.
Speaker 10: Nigeria has never been reliant on AID. What we have
Speaker 10: always sought for is strategic solutions to the issue of
Speaker 10: risk so that we can partner with countries and mitigate risk.
Speaker 10: So what we were taking in in terms of development
Speaker 10: AID is really not that significant and it's being covered.
Speaker 7: So what does this mean for Nigeria. Our reporter Nduka
Speaker 7: or Jinmo is based in a Buja. I started by
Speaker 7: asking him what USAID actually funded in the country.
Speaker 11: When you look across the country, you see the activities
Speaker 11: of USAID, you know cat across. So you go to
Speaker 11: some villages in South and Northern Nigeria and then you
Speaker 11: see potholes that have been built by the USAID. But
Speaker 11: I think they are most prominent interventions were in health
Speaker 11: and this could across malaria, tuberculosis and most importantly you know,
Speaker 11: walk around HIV and AIDS. Nigeria has the most people
Speaker 11: living with the condition in western Central Africa, and that
Speaker 11: funding went along when providing affordable treatment for them, went along,
Speaker 11: when providing you know, things like the kind of support
Speaker 11: services that they need. In funding angels that really worked
Speaker 11: with them. There's an agency in Nigeria that is basically
Speaker 11: dedicated to work around HI Young AIDS and that agency
Speaker 11: said ninety percent of their funding over the years came
Speaker 11: from USAI. So it just it shows you how immense
Speaker 11: you know that that contribution was.
Speaker 7: But at the same time, and Duka, we've been hearing
Speaker 7: from some Nigerian officials saying that they've actually budgeted extra
Speaker 7: money to fill the shortfall that now exists. Is it
Speaker 7: enough to actually make an impact?
Speaker 11: Well, the National Assembly they bought their two undred million
Speaker 11: dollars to cover what they see, you know, the wholes
Speaker 11: in the sectors that will be left by the USAID.
Speaker 11: If that is enough, it's what we don't know what
Speaker 11: since we begin to implement it. But my first instinct
Speaker 11: to say it's not likely going to be enough. And
Speaker 11: because there are several at of the agencies of government
Speaker 11: that have not really reported to the Bilder Ministry how
Speaker 11: much of their programs be impacted by the wither of AID.
Speaker 11: So I'll give you an example. The Nigeria Bureau Statistics,
Speaker 11: they do lots of the surveys around the economy. Is
Speaker 11: that the inflation GDP on employment a chunk of the
Speaker 11: funding that the gets comes from usa I D. Now
Speaker 11: it's not a direct funding, so it comes from the
Speaker 11: don't know agencies that have also received some funding from
Speaker 11: from usa ID. So I guess these agencies have not
Speaker 11: really calculated how much they will be losing. But I
Speaker 11: don't think two d million dollars is going to plug
Speaker 11: that hole. But what it means is that Nigeria at
Speaker 11: least has a fall back option, especially in that's critical
Speaker 11: sect of health where the government could not afford to
Speaker 11: let most of those programs in the health sector in
Speaker 11: all threes because the USCI defund and have been posted
Speaker 11: well and.
Speaker 9: We know from the pandemic.
Speaker 7: I mean, you can plug a gap for for so long, right,
Speaker 7: you don't know what is coming ahead. So what is
Speaker 7: at risk if some of these programs and if some
Speaker 7: of these stop gap measures are not actually sustainable.
Speaker 11: Lots lots of at risk then and it's it's hard
Speaker 11: to imagine what the cautions would be. So you're talking
Speaker 11: about HIV and AIDS and Najeria has never really got
Speaker 11: a grasp of the situation here where you still have,
Speaker 11: you know, despite these interventions, you still have you know,
Speaker 11: cases that keep going up. And then you look at malaria,
Speaker 11: which is quite endemic here, and then things like tuberculosis
Speaker 11: that's going to be quite devastating on the population, and
Speaker 11: all forget a crusier part of this is the role
Speaker 11: of proverty in all these situations. Most people who depended
Speaker 11: on those services provided by US idea, that's that funding
Speaker 11: where poor people, you know, in the rural areas, and
Speaker 11: so imagine now they have to provide those drugs for themselves.
Speaker 11: Imagine also you know that hospitals that the are used
Speaker 11: of visiting in the neighborhoods shot down because they no
Speaker 11: longer have that funding. So those consequences further down the
Speaker 11: line can be there and unless something is done, I
Speaker 11: mean in the shape of more funding either from outside
Speaker 11: ordining drank governments basically redirected morphics resources to to those hosts.
Speaker 7: Now and Andreka, you're you're obviously on the ground there.
Speaker 7: What are people telling you? What are some of the
Speaker 7: concerns that they're expressing at this point, given how fast
Speaker 7: things have been moving since we heard aid was being pulled.
Speaker 11: I've heard from people working in Manangeria's northeast regions. So
Speaker 11: this is the area that has been affected by you know,
Speaker 11: years of fighting insurgency and islam Mist insurgencies in that
Speaker 11: in that region. So that's Grouno States, that's your base states,
Speaker 11: parts of Adamara State and that's where you have you know,
Speaker 11: the bulk of these interventions and heads from people who
Speaker 11: are working at several UN agencies who've had to you know,
Speaker 11: close certain departments, who've had to close, setting units, setting
Speaker 11: programs that they are they are working on. And someone
Speaker 11: working in the agricultural sector was saying, look, Nigeria was going.
Speaker 9: To face forwarding security this year.
Speaker 11: That will lead to millions of people, you know, facing
Speaker 11: starvation because there was a huge flooding last year that
Speaker 11: destroyed lots of farmblance in the north and some of
Speaker 11: these programs from this AID was going to close that hole.
Speaker 11: And now this has been caught, you know, it's going
Speaker 11: to get worse.
Speaker 9: And you could hear.
Speaker 11: The concern, the deep concern in this person's voice. There's
Speaker 11: no help coming from anywhere, you know, for these, for
Speaker 11: these and agency, which is quite sad. So you think
Speaker 11: of people, millions of people you know that have been
Speaker 11: affected by years of four and the only help that
Speaker 11: they knew, we know, was it coming in via in
Speaker 11: all the American people, all that is now gone and
Speaker 11: there's no immediate help coming to their.
Speaker 9: Rescue to East Africa now.
Speaker 7: As well as funding health programs, USAID was responding to
Speaker 7: the civil war in Sudan, funding emergency kitchens across the
Speaker 7: country which may now need to close. Our reporter Simon
Speaker 7: Marx is based in Nairobi, and he told me what
Speaker 7: the immediate impacts of the cuts have been.
Speaker 12: Well, well, obviously a number of weeks into the eight
Speaker 12: cuts that the US government has implemented, and they've been
Speaker 12: very widespread in impacting a whole range of different health
Speaker 12: programs from HIV treatment to tuberculosis, to Malay area to
Speaker 12: vaccine research, to the ability of US officials to engage
Speaker 12: in the spread of ebola in neighboring Uganda, and all
Speaker 12: in all, I would say that there are a number
Speaker 12: of NGOs who get direct funding from the US who
Speaker 12: are looking to, you know, find find money from elsewhere.
Speaker 12: They've they've had their funds frozen and so programs have stopped.
Speaker 12: As well as that countries like Sudan where there is
Speaker 12: a famine, terrible famine unfolding in many, many different regions
Speaker 12: in NGO's soup kitchens that got money from the US,
Speaker 12: for example, have have stopped all over the country. So
Speaker 12: it's really aggravated the lives for many.
Speaker 7: And Simon, there's been a bit of conflicting news about
Speaker 7: whether partially some of the aid has returned or not.
Speaker 7: But if it doesn't in fact return to the levels
Speaker 7: that we saw before, how are people who you speak to,
Speaker 7: how are they rec bonding to it.
Speaker 12: Yeah, indeed, so as you said that some key sort
Speaker 12: of life saving funding, there has been news come out
Speaker 12: that this could come back, that there are indeed waivers.
Speaker 12: I'm not aware of anything in Kenyawear money's come back
Speaker 12: initially because people are just freezing while they see the
Speaker 12: final decision at the end of this ninety day period.
Speaker 12: If that happens, I think governments are going to have
Speaker 12: to shift gears. They're going to have to find money
Speaker 12: from elsewhere, either inside their own budgets or they're going
Speaker 12: to have to go looking to other countries to fill
Speaker 12: the void. And this has drawn out a debate locally
Speaker 12: about obviously just US influence in general and soft power,
Speaker 12: the ability of the US to sort of chip in
Speaker 12: on key areas such as health and education.
Speaker 9: You mentioned funding.
Speaker 7: Do some of these governments have the capacity in their
Speaker 7: budgets to fund some of these programs or will they
Speaker 7: look to external partners, as you say, to do the
Speaker 7: bulk of to fill the book of the gaps that
Speaker 7: may exist.
Speaker 12: Well, in the case of Kenya, for example, the government
Speaker 12: has said, you know that this is.
Speaker 11: A wake up call.
Speaker 12: It's actually also an opportunity for the government to really,
Speaker 12: I guess, grab the bull by the horns and you know,
Speaker 12: fund its own health sector more. But the reality is
Speaker 12: that it's a heavily indebted country. There is a huge
Speaker 12: amount of annual revenues going out just to paying off
Speaker 12: interest on debt. We've seen protests recently in Kenya that
Speaker 12: even managed to storm the National Parliament as a result.
Speaker 12: So there isn't really much wiggle room for a country
Speaker 12: like Kenya. And I think that's just one example, you know,
Speaker 12: and Keny is one of the more performing economies in
Speaker 12: the region.
Speaker 8: This is a life saving situation and we cannot sit
Speaker 8: and wait and begin on human life. So for us,
Speaker 8: it's about the human life, the lives that we need
Speaker 8: to save, so something needs to be done argently.
Speaker 9: And finally, Simon su Dan.
Speaker 7: You mentioned that what could this mean for the country
Speaker 7: if in fact aid does not return in the way
Speaker 7: that it was there before.
Speaker 12: So Dan is obviously at the very sort of bottom
Speaker 12: of the pyramid in terms of the absolute necessity right
Speaker 12: for international aid. I think there is a growing famine.
Speaker 12: The number of regions suffering from famine is growing quarter
Speaker 12: by quarter, and the US is a massive component of
Speaker 12: that aid, either through the World With Program or through
Speaker 12: other NGOs present in the country. So it's a devastating blow.
Speaker 12: I think there's a lot of hope right that once
Speaker 12: certain officials come in Africa, officials related to the State
Speaker 12: Department come in and start you know, actually talking to
Speaker 12: regional officials, that maybe some of responding can turn. But
Speaker 12: you know, Africa is not the biggest focus of the
Speaker 12: US administration, as other religions that are that are getting
Speaker 12: more focus at the moment, and so we're still waiting
Speaker 12: for that to happen.
Speaker 7: So it's still it's unclear how this could play out
Speaker 7: for the Sudanese people at this point.
Speaker 12: Yes, unfortunately, you know, one of the one of the
Speaker 12: really successful organizations to bring food to people in Sudan
Speaker 12: were this network of suit kitchens and and they've just
Speaker 12: literally stopped. They were dotted about in rural areas also
Speaker 12: in Khartoum, the capital, a lot of people who relied
Speaker 12: on them, you know, thousands and thousands of people.
Speaker 9: Stay with us.
Speaker 7: When we come back, we'll hear from our Healthcare and
Speaker 7: Consumer reporter, JENSQ on what the reaction has been from
Speaker 7: the healthcare community and how they might fill the shortfall.
Speaker 9: We'll be right back. Welcome back today.
Speaker 7: In a special episode of the Next Africa podcast, we're
Speaker 7: focusing on the impact of the proposed near total closure
Speaker 7: of billions of dollars of USAID projects in Africa. JENSQ
Speaker 7: is our Healthcare and Consumer reporter based in Johannesburg and
Speaker 7: has been covering this for well over a decade.
Speaker 9: I started by asking her what role did USAID play
Speaker 9: in Africa.
Speaker 1: Broadly, it was responsible for development assistance and the programs
Speaker 1: were wide and varied across thousands of initiatives in public health,
Speaker 1: disaster relief, socioeconomic developments, environmental protection, democratic governance, and education.
Speaker 1: Some of the key projects included ones around health research
Speaker 1: working to PRID solutions to HIV, as well as food
Speaker 1: and security, which is a big issue on the consonants.
Speaker 7: So talk about the impact so far that you've seen
Speaker 7: from the suspension of some of these programs, Where is
Speaker 7: it being felt the most.
Speaker 1: The recipients of this money have halted work and find stuff,
Speaker 1: and that abrupt manner has devastating consequences, especially for people
Speaker 1: living with HIV as well as for other key and
Speaker 1: vulnerable populations. Desimon two to Health Foundation Chief executive Officer
Speaker 1: Linda Gail Becker says South Africa stands to lose twenty
Speaker 1: five years worth of HIV investment if government can't pull
Speaker 1: the gaps, with more than five hundred thousand HIV related
Speaker 1: deaths expected to occur over the next decade because of
Speaker 1: the terminations. A US funded HIV vaccine file, where South
Speaker 1: African Medical Research Council had teamed up with scientists from
Speaker 1: eight countries on the continents, has also stopped because of
Speaker 1: the USID moves. And you know, from these examples, it's
Speaker 1: very clear that the impacts is really really wide reaching,
Speaker 1: and it's not just that the funds aren't there. It's
Speaker 1: the manner with which it's been done, the abruptness of
Speaker 1: it that is really key and very very destructive.
Speaker 7: So then how concerned are some of these aid and
Speaker 7: health agencies that you listen to time and time again,
Speaker 7: how concerned are they about this?
Speaker 1: They're very concerned. No one knows where the funding will
Speaker 1: come from and whether any of it will arrive in time,
Speaker 1: and it's really quite overwhelming. I mean, when intricate and
Speaker 1: interlinked programs are halted so abruptly, even if the money
Speaker 1: comes in from elsewhere, it's hard to restart and build
Speaker 1: up again, not least because certain programs are only successful
Speaker 1: if patients actually come into the clinic or the facility
Speaker 1: and get their mets. We saw this with COVID nineteen
Speaker 1: when people were told not to come in, they didn't,
Speaker 1: and then it really takes time to get people back in. Later,
Speaker 1: we've seen this sort of the rookly effect of that
Speaker 1: with vaccinations across the continent. A lot of vaccination programs,
Speaker 1: routine vaccination programs for children specifically halted during COVID nineteen
Speaker 1: because people were told only to come into a hospital clinic,
Speaker 1: you know, in an emergency effectively, and so these things
Speaker 1: really do take time to get back up and running.
Speaker 1: There's also a lot of distress that comes in when
Speaker 1: things are halted so abruptly. It takes a lot of
Speaker 1: work working with people on the ground in communities to
Speaker 1: build that trust, and when something like this happens, that
Speaker 1: trust is often destroyed, and so people just to go
Speaker 1: back to the vaccination programs, reteen vaccination programs for children parents.
Speaker 1: It isn't just that you have to make up the
Speaker 1: backlog because certain shots have been missed at Milestone Ages,
Speaker 1: but there's also distrust issue and people wonder if it's
Speaker 1: really necessary and it's just very, very disruptive.
Speaker 7: Is that how people on the ground would describe it
Speaker 7: to you, jen as or are describing it to you.
Speaker 9: Disruptive? I mean, what else are they telling you?
Speaker 1: Chiotic would be another word.
Speaker 4: I mean.
Speaker 1: Yvettrafael, who I interviewed last year for a story about
Speaker 1: HIV and aging, heads up a South African advocacy group
Speaker 1: for the prevention of HIV and AIDS. She said last
Speaker 1: week that the Trump administration, according to her organization, has
Speaker 1: globally declared war on the rights to health in South Africa.
Speaker 1: Health is a right and there are scores of people
Speaker 1: who are describing the news of the Holtz's chaos as
Speaker 1: the organizations have told the bulk of their colleagues, they
Speaker 1: no longer have jobs. There are scores of people get
Speaker 1: who were getting regular mades and already have no supplies
Speaker 1: for life threatening diseases, and they've got no idea where
Speaker 1: or when to get more for them. It's quite literally
Speaker 1: feels like a death sentence. There was a briefing held
Speaker 1: last week when the news started flowing through and these
Speaker 1: emails that come for our region on the African continent,
Speaker 1: a lot of these emails that come overnight, and people
Speaker 1: from these various organizations, thousands of them were trying to
Speaker 1: get onto this briefing. They actually had to give the
Speaker 1: links to people afterwards because so many people were trying
Speaker 1: to get on and the people who spoke, many of
Speaker 1: them were incredibly emotional. I mean on the verge of tears.
Speaker 1: It is that devastating for people. It's that real.
Speaker 7: So Janice, what is the likelihood we'll see someone else
Speaker 7: at least try to fill the gaps that USA Ideas
Speaker 7: now is now leaving Africa.
Speaker 1: CDC says that they have had some money come in
Speaker 1: from Japan and Korea. There is an expectation that the
Speaker 1: Middle East might step in to some degree. A lot
Speaker 1: of the billionaires across the globe who have philothropic branches
Speaker 1: or organizations are trying to see what they can do.
Speaker 1: But I think even for them it's quite overwhelming the
Speaker 1: amount of money, at least from the Africa CDC points
Speaker 1: what's been offered so far from Japan and Korea. They
Speaker 1: would never say that it's insignificant, because it's not. But
Speaker 1: it's really just the top of the iceberg. And so
Speaker 1: to really fill the gaps fully is going to take
Speaker 1: a lot of work. Again, these programs didn't happen overnight.
Speaker 1: This amount of money wasn't one big lump sum at
Speaker 1: the start of something. It's been incrementally added over years
Speaker 1: and years, and so it is very difficult to fully
Speaker 1: fund those gaps, and it's difficult to do it rush.
Speaker 1: You know, had friends been withdrawn in more ugly mena,
Speaker 1: but definitely would have been devastating.
Speaker 7: And thanks so much to our reporters Nduka or Jinmo,
Speaker 7: Simon Marx and jenis Q. You can read all of
Speaker 7: their coverage and reporting on the suspension of USAID programs
Speaker 7: across Bloomberg platforms now, including the Next African Newsletter.
Speaker 9: Will put a link to that in the show notes.
Speaker 7: This program was produced by Adrian Bradley and Tiwa Adubayo.
Speaker 7: Don't forget to follow and review this show wherever you
Speaker 7: usually get your podcasts.
Speaker 9: I'm Jennifer's Abasaja. Thanks as always for listening.