The abrupt suspension of USAID funding in January 2025 had severe consequences for aid-dependent populations and illustrates how sudden aid withdrawals can affect vulnerable economies.
Exploiting the Trump administration’s immediate global stop-work order as a natural experiment, driven by US domestic politics rather than local conditions in Africa, and using satellite-based night-time lights and humanitarian food-security data, shows significant local economic and humanitarian impacts.
Night-time brightness fell by around 6% within one kilometre of affected sites, equivalent to an annual economic contraction of roughly 1.4 percentage points. By September 2025, an estimated 2.7 million additional people faced acute food insecurity, including 1.6 million in emergency conditions.
Effects were strongest in countries with weaker institutions. These findings suggest that, regardless of views on aid levels, the design and timing of aid withdrawal carry important policy implications, with managed transitions potentially reducing avoidable economic and humanitarian harm.
