IFs model used to determine the toll of USAID cuts on Africa
The Institute for Security Studies African Futures (ISS) has released a new article about how the unprecedented shut-down of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) will affect African countries. Using the Pardee Institute’s International Futures forecasting platform (IFs) to model the cut in assistance, the ISS found that 5.7 million more Africans would fall below the US$2.15 extreme poverty income level in the next year should the Trump administration continue with its sweeping aid reduction.
Author and Founder of the ISS, Jakkie Cilliers, provides detailed context on the reliance of several African countries on U.S. aid and delves into the changing landscape of U.S. foreign aid policy. The U.S. provides 26% of all aid that comes to Africa. The largest component of which is spent in the health sector to combat deadly diseases like HIV/AIDS, malaria, and more. Outside of the health sector, U.S. aid to African countries supports agricultural productivity and economic growth, bolsters security, promotes democracy, human rights, and governance, and improves access to quality education and social services.
In January 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump signed the Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid executive order, which led USAID to suspend operations by award recipients. According to the models, the sudden loss of funding to these development sectors will have a considerable impact on the future of Africa. In this assessment, the ISS African Futures modeling platform used IFs to model a scenario in which aid to Africa is reduced by 20%. By 2030, they found that 19 million more Africans would be considered extremely poor as a result of the aid reduction. ISS tested an alternative scenario where Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) was used to replace the loss in aid. They increased FDI to the same volume to see if it could offset the loss but found “no evidence.” For the poorest countries, FDI increased inequality and poverty in the short and medium-term. Further findings include a dramatic decrease in the sub-Saharan economy by $4.6 billion and a rise in mortality and displacement throughout the continent. Cilliers offers alternative solutions that serve both the U.S. desire to reform its aid policy and African leaders as they navigate this geopolitical shift.
The IFs platform is the only open-source, global model that covers 188 countries and integrates data to forecast a range of interconnected variables across human, social, and natural systems. With a database that goes back to the 1960s in key areas—such as agriculture, economics, governance, health, and more—the IFs is a tool that allows researchers and policymakers to explore the way different policies will shape the future up to the year 2100 and can be used to model the potential consequence of aid loss to several African countries.
The importance of ISS’s work with Pardee’s International Futures model comes from its ability to forecast how the change in U.S. foreign aid policy will impact Africa. This will allow leaders in African nations and across the world to prepare themselves for the course ahead. It also enables ISS and other researchers to plumb the depths of aid reform and explore how alternative aid policy could better meet the needs of our global future.
Read the full article here.