How African communities are responding to the aid cuts

Cuts to USAID funding have had a serious short-term impact on health services on the African continent, but they may also create opportunities in the long term, as they force governments to rethink health policies. That’s the view put forward by Kennedy Odede, founder of Shining Hope for Communities, known as SHOFCO — a Kenyan community-based organization delivering health and education services, and community advocacy, among other things, in informal settlements. Odede was speaking at Devex Impact House during the high-level week of the 80th United Nations General Assembly. He said that community-based organizations, or CBOs, have been left to bear the brunt of aid cuts. “You can see what’s happening now around the world, where the global north are cutting their funding for the communities. And right now, we are seeing many big organizations running away. Who is left? Local CBOs,” he stated. The sudden end to much of USAID funding has had an impact even on organizations such as his own which did not receive direct USAID funding. SHOFCO had seen a significant increase in patients attending its clinics, for example, because they were no longer able to access services that USAID had previously funded, he explained. However, Odede said that while it had been sad to see the short-term impact of aid cuts on services, particularly health services, it also highlighted the need for African countries to develop their own services, and for a greater role for African governments. “There’s something positive I’ve seen happening,” he said. “I see governments trying to adjust — to spend more on health.” For him, the development sector had lost its way, and had moved away from the ideas it started from. “Development is really messed up,” he said. “We have to really accept that communities know the best. And how do we listen to them, right? How do we come up with solutions? You know, you can't come from [Washington,] D.C. or London or New York with a solution to work in a refugee center in Kenya, in Kakuma, for example.” He said we needed to accept that people were experts in their own problems, and listen to what they suggested. “You have to engage them directly,” he said. “You have to work with them, for you to get the solution. And this idea that they don’t know the answers, and we know — obviously we are wrong, because they live a life. They know their problems, and we just need to listen.” Odede said that the COVID-19 crisis had shown African countries that they could be left on their own. Ultimately, he said, localization needed to be driven by local people taking power for themselves, not being given it from abroad. “If we bring in private partnership and start kind of forgetting the idea of money from abroad, I think that’s the future,” he said, “whereby companies in each country are trying to be partners with local organizations. That’s how we’re going to have this thing called localization. Otherwise, it will just be a theory.”