One year after the closing of USAID: “The story isn’t over for international solidarity”

What impact has the closure of USAID, the American foreign aid agency, had on international solidarity over the past year?

Thomas Mélonio: Initially in 2025, there was a time of significant uncertainty. I called this the chainsaw period: rapid budget cuts and a major cultural battle in the United States, and to a lesser degree in Europe, where budget priorities shifted to providing military support to Ukraine and defense spending. International solidarity budgets were cut sharply around the globe, which will have consequences in the medium term because development programs were interrupted, with impacts that are already being felt.

The period that followed showed some renewed investment from the United States. Several very important agreements were signed in the area of health: $1.7 billion in grants in Uganda over five years and $1.5 billion in Kenya, but also in Côte d’Ivoire and Rwanda to support allied countries and prevent pandemics. The US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), the American counterpart to Proparco (an institution specialized in the private sector), more than quadrupled its lending opportunities, mainly in the area of economic cooperation. The American Congress also added nearly $20 billion to the government’s initial development policy proposal. The American system hasn’t disappeared, and it’s maintaining a high level of support, even though it looks much different and is arguably less than previously.

Which sectors are experiencing budgetary cutbacks?

It’s quite clear that anything linked to the social agenda, women’s rights, and the rights of sexual minorities is seeing substantial cuts in American funding. Cuts have also been made in the area of climate change. This is a new philosophy that’s appearing, in keeping with a conservative approach to these areas.

No one can make up the void left by USAID and its $42 billion annual budget. But the story isn’t over. The latest signs indicate that the United States may not reduce its civil cooperation tools as much as once expected. Meanwhile, other actors are getting involved, such as the Gates Foundation, which announced that it will be increasing its funding.

How has the AFD Group’s activity changed in this new context?

Over the past two years, AFD Group has lost a share of its intervention credits. This has tangible effects on operations in Africa for AFD – less so for Proparco and Expertise France – and has led to an increase in activity in Latin America.

The challenge is being able to maintain a significant level of operations in all sectors amid budget cutbacks, while the social sectors and NGOs have historically depended on that support to a very large degree. But we can still develop activity based on loans in all our sectors of intervention. We are already providing loans in the areas of education, health, and biodiversity. One of the challenges in terms of revenue is to grow this part of our portfolio.

More than ever, mobilization remains a key pillar of our strategy: we also want to increase delegated funds from our partners. To do this, we need to stay highly attuned to their requests. For example, the European Union will likely focus more on its Southern Neighbourhood and Eastern Neighbourhood partnerships. We are also working with foundations and new donors and investors in Europe, the United States, and the Gulf countries. It makes sense for us to use our capacities to mobilize more external funding and produce sizable impacts given that global needs haven’t declined – in fact, it’s quite the contrary.