Presented by Gates Foundation
Africa absorbed some significant economic blows last year from the U.S. aid cuts, President Donald Trump’s tariffs, and the expiration of a landmark Africa-U.S. trade program. But things seem to be looking up for the continent, at least for the moment.
Also in today’s edition: Trump revives his fight against religious persecution, and a popular program that got swept up in USAID’s dismantling finds new life.
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AGOA is back, again, for now
It’s not the longer-term extension supporters wanted, but it’s still a reprieve from the political haggling that threatened to doom it.
I’m talking about the African Growth and Opportunity Act, or AGOA, a 25-year-old trade program between the United States and sub-Saharan African nations designed to provide tariff-free access to the U.S. market for thousands of products as a way of boosting economic development, strengthening the rule of law, and deepening political ties.
While the U.S. House of Representatives approved a three-year extension of the program, the final bill passed by Congress and signed into law by Trump only offers a one-year extension, my colleague Adva Saldinger writes. Still, even getting to this point was an accomplishment given America’s pitched political battles.
The administration says it wants to use this time to work with Congress to modernize the program and align it with Trump’s trade policies, according to U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.
“AGOA for the 21st century must demand more from our trading partners and yield more market access for U.S. businesses, farmers, and ranchers to build upon the benefits it has historically provided to Africa and the United States,” he says, adding: “We must also make sure that the program enhances U.S.-Africa trade.”
Read: Trump signs one-year AGOA extension, preserving US-Africa trade program
For all that is holy
Religious persecution is a global scourge. Trump is taking another stab at combating it, with a heavy focus on Christians.
The U.S. State Department is promoting religious freedom by rolling out a $4.8 million funding opportunity and formalizing a related commitment with Hungary — a country that’s long positioned itself as an advocate for persecuted Christians, my colleague Elissa Miolene writes.
The move echoes Trump’s first term, when USAID launched the Genocide Recovery and Persecution Response initiative in 2018 to help persecuted Christian and Yazidi communities in northern Iraq.
That same year, the Trump administration created the International Religious Freedom Fund to provide emergency assistance to victims of religious persecution. And in 2020, Trump signed an executive order to advance religious freedom worldwide, directing the State Department and USAID to allocate $50 million per year toward the sector.
But USAID is now defunct after a year of chaos that didn’t spare the aid sector’s faith community. In fact, some of USAID’s largest faith-based partners — from World Vision to Catholic Relief Services — were targets of the administration’s foreign aid cull, and the heads of several faith-based groups warned that millions would die after USAID’s collapse.
“With the dismantling of USAID and integrating it into the State Department, it is unclear how policies to help victims of religious violence become tangible programs and assistance on the ground,” said Samah Norquist, the former religious freedom envoy for USAID during the first Trump administration, speaking at a hearing last May.
Another concern is the strong emphasis on Christians — and whether it’s excluding other faiths.
“While I’m glad that the Trump administration has supposedly shown its support for this issue, I’m concerned this interest will be shallow and narrowly confined to only a small subset of religious freedom that match the demographics of their political base,” said Rep. Sara Jacobs, a Democrat from California, speaking on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. “But I hope the administration proves me wrong.”
Read: State Department reboots religious freedom in echo of Trump’s first term
Resurrected from USAID’s ashes
Evaluation. Evidence. Efficiency. Cost-effectiveness. Flexibility. Scale.
Those are some of the components that made USAID’s Development Innovation Ventures, or DIV, a successful haven for innovative projects — until USAID ceased to exist.
The concept didn’t die along with it, however. The DIV Fund is the newly launched reincarnation of the original USAID initiative that supported hundreds of social impact ventures globally, while also steering other donors to adopt evidence-driven approaches to scale what works.
It was also one of the few places that offered small, early grants for untested ideas as well as larger investments after evidence of impact emerged, no matter the type of organization, size, sector, or geography.
“When DIV was shut down, that front door wasn’t there,” says Jeff Brown, cofounder and chief innovation officer of the DIV Fund. “And we’re bringing it back.”
But it’s bringing DIV back without the tremendous government resources and reach it once enjoyed under the umbrella of USAID, my colleague Catherine Cheney writes.
“We’ll have way less money in the space than we did before,” says Sasha Gallant, former head of DIV at USAID and now the DIV Fund’s CEO.
But she and Brown don’t see that as an impediment, noting the practical advantages of independence such as fewer administrative constraints, greater flexibility in paying for expertise, and the ability to move faster and experiment with new partnerships and technologies.
“I love the staging of the DIV model, and I’m excited to see it be implemented outside of government,” says Gallant.
“One of the things DIV has been really good at, and I expect we’ll continue to be really good at, is being a discovery engine for the field,” she adds. “We’ve got a pretty good eye for needles in giant haystacks.”
Read: New fund revives USAID's 'discovery engine' outside of government (Pro)
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Saving the day
Gallant is among the people included in our Power 50 list, a snippet of which we’ve been featuring all week in Newswire.
Did you know that in addition to the DIV Fund, Gallant was one of the key leaders behind the Project Resource Optimization initiative — a closely watched philanthropic experiment that emerged from the collapse of USAID. In just over six months, PRO mobilized $110 million to sustain 81 proven health and humanitarian programs that lost U.S. funding, ensuring continuity of services for 41 million people in more than 30 countries.
To learn more about Gallant and the 49 other people influencing global development, check out our Power 50 list.
Explore: Devex Power 50
+ Listen: I talked about some other Power 50 personalities with my colleagues Fiona Zublin and David Ainsworth in the latest edition of our podcast, This Week in Global Development. We also discussed another, well, critical subject: critical minerals, and how African countries are trying to reap their fair share of the benefits.
I zip, you zip, we zip
The U.S. robotics company Zipline has inked its first expansion agreement with an African country since announcing a $150 million grant partnership with the U.S. State Department to double its drone delivery operations on the continent.
The U.S. government funding is contingent on Zipline signing these agreements with four partner governments, and this week, Rwanda became the first to do so. With this plan to scale Zipline’s operations in the country, Rwanda will become the first country in the world with “full nationwide autonomous logistics coverage,” according to a press release announcing the agreement. It will also be the first country in Africa to introduce Zipline's urban delivery system, known as “Platform 2.”
At the same time, Zipline announced it will establish a new “AI and robotics testing facility in Rwanda,” calling it “the company’s first overseas research and development hub.” It’s a symbolic — as well as an operational — expansion. Rwanda was the first country in the world to launch Zipline’s autonomous delivery service in 2016.
Background reading: State Dept grants $150M to Zipline to triple African drone operations
In other news
The United Kingdom is set to cut climate finance for developing countries by more than 20%, from £11.6 billion to £9 billion over five years, despite global pledges to scale up support. [The Guardian]
A government air strike hit one of Médecins Sans Frontiéres’ hospitals in South Sudan’s Jonglei state on Tuesday, while another health facility was looted by unknown attackers in a separate incident. [Al Jazeera]
The United Kingdom has reached deals with Angola, Namibia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo to take back migrants after threatening visa penalties for countries that refuse to cooperate on returns. [BBC]
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About the author
Anna Gawel
Anna Gawel is the Managing Editor of Devex. She previously worked as the managing editor of The Washington Diplomat, the flagship publication of D.C.’s diplomatic community. She’s had hundreds of articles published on world affairs, U.S. foreign policy, politics, security, trade, travel and the arts on topics ranging from the impact of State Department budget cuts to Caribbean efforts to fight climate change. She was also a broadcast producer and digital editor at WTOP News and host of the Global 360 podcast. She holds a journalism degree from the University of Maryland in College Park.
