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4w ago

Study Ties USAID’s 2025 Shutdown to Rise in Violence Across Africa

Researchers attribute the rise to a sudden shock that broke local commitments, erased wages, then made violence more attractive.

FILE - A man walks past a closed clinic run by WITS Reproductive Health Institute (RHI) as a sign on the gate reads "USAID has served the WITS RHI Key Populations Programme a notice to pause programme implementation. As of Tuesday, 28 January, we are unable to provide services until further notice." in Johannesburg, South Africa, Feb. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe, File)
FILE - The American flag flying alone beside an empty flagpole that previously had the flag of the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, are pictured in the reflection of a window that previously had the sign and the seal of USAID, outside the agency's headquarters in Washington, Feb. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
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Overview

  • A peer-reviewed Science study released Thursday reports immediate and sustained increases in violent events where USAID once operated, including about 10% more protests and riots, a 6.9% rise in battles, and a 9.3% jump in battle-related deaths.
  • The authors analyzed 870 African regions from March 2024 to November 2025, linking past USAID project locations to subsequent conflict records to see how violence changed after programs stopped.
  • Areas that had received the most USAID support experienced the largest upticks, with places that had weaker checks on executive power seeing sharper surges.
  • The team says the no-notice shutdown disrupted contracts and pay, which removed jobs and services that had raised the cost of joining armed groups.
  • Experts warn of broader fallout for people and security, pointing to medical models that project millions of preventable deaths by 2030 and to incidents such as Houthi forces seizing discarded USAID supplies in Yemen.