Keypoints:
- Trump slashes Africa health funding
- Refugees question global aid system
- Call for African-led economic reform
WHEN US President Donald Trump unveiled his ‘America First’ health strategy, many development experts predicted sharp consequences for Africa. Those fears have been realised in 2025. Washington has pared back major global health and development programmes, slashing contributions to HIV/AIDS prevention, maternal health services and disease surveillance networks across the continent.
Trump’s stated rationale is to prioritise American domestic needs, redirecting resources away from foreign commitments. For US voters who share his scepticism of globalism, the policy resonates. But in African capitals and humanitarian circles, the cuts have deepened anxiety about the fragility of the international aid system.
Ironically, the US retreat underscores a criticism long voiced by African activists and some refugees themselves: that the global aid model is structurally flawed and ultimately unsustainable. If one donor can destabilise an entire health system with a stroke of the pen, then perhaps the model was never designed to create lasting resilience.
A refugee’s protest speaks volumes
This year’s United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) arrives against this backdrop of uncertainty. Yet one familiar voice will be absent. A young refugee who has addressed world leaders at the UN for four consecutive years has announced that they will not attend.
Their decision is not about scheduling. It is a deliberate act of dissent—an indictment of what they describe as the empty performance of multilateralism. As someone who fled war in childhood and spent 11 years in Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp, they have often been invited to share their story as an ‘inspiring reminder’ of the need for peace. But they have grown weary of what they call ‘the cycle of sharing my story for applause’, only to watch leaders return to policies that fuel more conflict and displacement.
This personal protest resonates far beyond one individual. It captures a wider frustration with a humanitarian system that, despite decades of pledges and billions in donations, has failed to transform the daily reality of millions of displaced people.
Aid dependence under strain
The refugee’s experience in Kakuma offers a stark illustration. Year after year, conditions worsened despite the influx of international assistance. There was never, they say, a single moment when life in the camp genuinely improved.
This testimony challenges the fixation on whether Trump’s cuts will worsen Africa’s situation. As the refugee bluntly puts it: ‘When was our situation ever better?’ In their view, foreign aid in its current form has never solved systemic problems. It provides short-term relief but rarely addresses the root causes of displacement—conflict, economic injustice and exploitative global trade.
Trump’s America First policy makes that critique impossible to ignore. By slashing funding to PEPFAR (the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) and other health initiatives, Washington has reminded African governments and NGOs how vulnerable they are to the political winds of a single donor nation. For clinics in rural Zambia or malaria-control programmes in Nigeria, a sudden funding gap can be catastrophic.
Yet the real lesson may be that dependency itself is the core problem. A system in which millions depend on the generosity of a distant government was never a path to genuine stability.
Local voices, global stakes
The refugee calls for a profound shift in how humanitarian work is conceived and delivered. First, they argue, international NGOs must step aside and let local, community-led organisations design and implement solutions. These groups understand their own contexts, yet are often sidelined by large international agencies that dominate funding and decision-making.
Second, they advocate moving beyond foreign aid altogether. Instead of scrambling to replace US dollars with European euros or private donations, African leaders and their partners should focus on fair trade agreements, debt cancellation and investment in agriculture and industrialisation. Such measures would allow African nations to harness their own natural wealth and create jobs, reducing the need for perpetual external support.
This argument dovetails with a growing body of economic research. African economists have long warned that heavy reliance on aid can discourage domestic revenue mobilisation and distort governance. When governments rely on donors rather than their own citizens for revenue, they risk losing accountability to their people.
Confronting the ‘war machine’
Perhaps the most provocative element of the refugee’s critique is the insistence that the so-called refugee crisis is not merely humanitarian but political. ‘We don’t have a refugee or humanitarian crisis—we have a war machine problem,’ they say.
This statement reframes displacement as the predictable outcome of a global system in which powerful states, including some donor governments, invest heavily in arms and military interventions. The refugee accuses major humanitarian organisations of giving these governments platforms to ‘whitewash their crimes’ by showcasing their generosity while ignoring their role in perpetuating conflict.
Trump’s foreign policy provides an example. While reducing humanitarian budgets, his administration has increased arms sales to conflict-prone regions and maintained military partnerships across Africa. Critics argue that such policies may inflame the very instability that drives migration and humanitarian need.
A reckoning for African leadership
Ultimately, the refugee places responsibility not only on Western governments but also on African leaders. They argue that Africa’s salvation lies with African governments willing to prioritise the continent’s interests over Western approval. Too many, they contend, currently serve the agendas of wealthy nations because of structural economic pressures and entrenched political habits.
Here, Trump’s aid cuts may serve as a wake-up call. If African governments can no longer count on Washington’s largesse, they may be compelled to pursue bolder strategies for self-reliance—investing in local industries, strengthening tax systems and negotiating trade deals that serve African markets first.
There are already signs of such a shift. The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is slowly taking shape, aiming to boost intra-African trade and reduce reliance on external markets. Programmes to modernise agriculture and add value to raw materials are gathering momentum in countries like Ghana and Rwanda. But progress remains uneven and often hampered by political inertia.
The end of business as usual
For humanitarian agencies, Trump’s America First policy is a moment of reckoning. They can continue lobbying donors for ever-shrinking budgets, or they can confront the structural flaws the refugee so powerfully highlights. That means rethinking not only funding streams but also their own role as intermediaries between donors and the communities they serve.
Some organisations are experimenting with direct cash transfers to local actors and refugees, bypassing traditional bureaucracies. Others are building partnerships with African start-ups and social enterprises that offer homegrown solutions. But these efforts remain small compared with the scale of need—and the entrenched habits of a global aid industry built over decades.
A call to action
The refugee’s message is blunt: the world does not need more UN resolutions or high-profile conferences. The path forward is clear—support local leadership, reform global trade and financial systems, and end the wars that create displacement in the first place.
‘The time for action is now. Not tomorrow,’ they insist. It is a challenge not only to Trump’s America First strategy but to every government and organisation that has grown comfortable in a cycle of crisis and response.
Building a new global compact
If there is a silver lining to the turbulence of Trump’s aid cuts, it may be the opportunity to rethink the entire global compact on humanitarian assistance. African nations and their partners can seize this moment to craft a model based on mutual respect and shared prosperity rather than dependency and paternalism.
Such a transformation will not happen overnight. It requires political courage in African capitals, sustained advocacy from civil society and a willingness by ordinary citizens to hold leaders accountable. It also demands that wealthy nations—whether under Trump or future administrations—recognise that stability and prosperity in Africa ultimately serve the world’s collective interest.
Until that happens, the refugee’s absence from UNGA stands as a powerful symbol. It is a reminder that the legitimacy of multilateralism is eroding, not because of a single US president’s policy, but because the system itself has failed to deliver on its promises.
