From Assistance to Partnership: Changing the Lens on Aid to Africa

The US decision to slash foreign aid has highlighted two contrasting narratives around official development assistance (ODA). One, largely Western-led, frames the cuts as a humanitarian catastrophe in the making. The other, rooted in African and diaspora voices, views them as a long-overdue opportunity to sever colonial-like dependencies and reset Africa’s path toward economic transformation. Both views hold merit. The “trade, not aid” and investment paradigms seem to lead new initiatives to update the ODA framework, but the abrupt cuts have interrupted essential means of support, threatening lives. The question arises: Should we see aid for its moral or its broader systemic framework?

The Two Narratives Around ODA Cuts

Although ultimately agreeing to US President Donald Trump’s $9 billion rescissions package, the US Congress decided to protect symbolic HIV/AIDS programs such as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) from future cuts. This exception is significant, as such programs help to project the United States’ international image as an indispensable actor in humanitarian aid. In fact, with its annual budget of around $6.5 billion, PEPFAR is recognized as having saved millions of lives in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) since it began in 2003. Recent reports state that the absence of USAID programs is expected to result in the loss of around 14 million lives in the region over the next five years. Understandably, the partial rescue of health assistance is welcomed with relief as many look for ways to fill the gap left by USAID. The answer in Western discourse usually turns toward Western solutions. One notable voice is Bill Gates, who has announced his commitment to doubling his foundation’s budget, directing the majority of it to SSA sectors hit by the cuts.

But this surge in philanthropic hopes is counterbalanced by a sobering reality. Prior to the cuts, the African Union (AU) and OECD estimated that the continent will face a development financing gap of $194 billion annually until 2030. While helpful, philanthropy alone will not replace the dwindling public aid or fill the preexisting financing gap.

Curiously, pro-aid narratives forecasting bleak scenarios are not working as they used to. They increasingly clash with critiques that highlight inadequacies such as the perpetuation of dependency, neglect of structural change, and the disregard for neo-colonial dynamics. Both philanthropy and traditional ODA approaches often reproduce top-down mechanisms that marginalize local agency. For instance, aid allocation priorities are frequently decided and imposed by donor governments or international NGOs, sidelining political and civil actors in recipient countries.

These limits are highlighted within the African response to aid reduction. Voices from former African ambassadors to current presidents are calling to seize this moment as an opportunity to reframe the aid paradigm. Rooted in frustration with the beggar–savior dichotomy, reform ideas emerging from various policy circles are pushing for long-term financing strategies to encourage structural economic growth in African societies. Ranging from simplifying aid processes to promoting industrialization, each points to the need to evolve from aid as help to aid as partnership.

Yet, the promise of this reframing is constrained by current realities. Most African economies remain structurally dependent on external funding, facing limited fiscal space and debt vulnerabilities that narrow their capacity to implement autonomous strategies. Moreover, the global aid and finance architecture remains largely shaped by Western actors, limiting the effectiveness of calls for horizontal partnerships. While the reformist narrative signals an important shift, it risks overestimating the current agency of African states within a global system that continues to operate on asymmetrical terms.

Changing the Lens on Aid

In a world increasingly shaped by strategic competition, the Western “savior” mindset no longer holds. While ODA still enjoys public support, solidarity alone is no longer enough to justify spending to policymakers. Framed as altruism, aid spending is spun as money that leaves and never returns, fueling domestic skepticism and budgetary pushback. This is manifest in several European budget revisions around foreign aid, such as France’s 18.6% aid budget cut in 2025. Africa’s aid landscape is no longer Western-led. China has committed over $50 billion in new financing at the latest Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), blending grants, concessional loans, and large-scale credit lines, and is Africa’s largest bilateral creditor. Gulf states are also scaling up. In 2024 Riyad committed to a $41 billion investment package for SSA over the next decade. In addition to financing health and education initiatives, the package includes securing resources from SSA (particularly renewable energy) for Saudi Arabia linked to economic diversification strategies.

For Euro-Atlantic donors, this competition should not be about scale, but about strategic framing. This approach is already in practice in certain strategies. For example, the EU’s Strategic Compass links security goals to the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI), threading development financing into geopolitical objectives. Between 2021 and 2024, NDICI financed €228 million in Côte d’Ivoire, with 20% dedicated to governance, peace, and stability. However, there is no transparent impact assessment on whether these investments improve governance or local ownership. This points up a structural weakness compared to China’s more visible infrastructure outputs, which, though controversial, are tangible and highly visible to African publics. To avoid being perceived as bureaucratic and disconnected from African priorities, Euro-Atlantic strategies should actively involve recipient governments in co-defining mutual priorities and in implementation.

The economic case for change is already clear. The Overseas Development Institute’s (ODI) Global Trade Analysis Project estimates that the EU’s $27.4 billion spent on ODA between 2020 and 2022 could return up to $27.6 billion in EU exports. The United States has already embraced this market-access logic, using commercial diplomacy to secure $2.5 billion in deals at its latest US-Africa Business Summit. Aligning assistance with African industrial priorities, scaling manufacturing, adding value to raw materials, and investing in local innovation would advance African economic growth. It would also strengthen European energy diversification, market growth, supply chain resilience, and progress toward global climate and development goals.

European initiatives such as the Global Gateway (GG) already hint at this framework, embedding aid within competitiveness narratives and encouraging both private and public investment in strategic sectors. Yet its impressive pledge of $150 billion to Sub-Saharan Africa by 2027 has been dimmed by underwhelming implementation and a confusing strategy. Implicitly designed as an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the GG has been playing catch-up to a model that has stronger public recognition because it offers fast, concrete benefits. Instead of treating this as a zero-sum race, the EU could focus on adding targeted value and complementing existing initiatives by offering institutional know-how, regulatory expertise, and sustainable industrial development. At a time when the Big Three credit agencies continue to penalize African countries and African-led financial mechanisms with near-zero investment ratings, supporting sovereign financing capacity would directly address systemic inequities and align with the EU’s stated commitment to fair global governance. This would also improve the perception of Europe in African public opinion and reduce the risk of colonial comparisons creeping back.

A European approach, supported by willing transatlantic partners, could transform current disadvantages into strategic strengths. By working together, the EU and willing partners can establish themselves as leaders in sustainable financing, institutional capacity-building, and fair investment governance. This collaboration should offer a transparent alternative to opaque debt arrangements while complementing infrastructure investments made by other actors. For example, the EU’s development finance institutions (EDFI), the European Investment Bank (EIB), and the private sector could play a transformative role by partnering with African governments and banks to improve portfolio structuring and promote ambitious continental alternatives such as the African Credit Rating Agency. This would, in turn, address credit downgrades that unnecessarily inflate borrowing costs. A second approach could be to coordinate closely with African governments to co-design industrial policy investments in sectors such as manufacturing, renewable energy, and value-added processing. This would not only support African development but also directly enhance European supply chain security. Lastly, leveraging blended finance mechanisms through institutions such as the EIB would help attract private investment in sectors currently underserved by Chinese and Gulf capital, including water infrastructure and public health systems.

Development Takes Time and Bold Steps

ODA is a multifaceted tool and should be applied as such. Development requires time and sustained support to lay solid foundations and generate transformative change across African economies and societies. So although humanitarian aid remains essential in responding to urgent crises, it addresses symptoms, not the structural roots of systemic development issues. ODA is in essence political; its design and framing signal whether donor countries are willing to back Africa’s long-term priorities or remain focused on short-term fixes.

African partners increasingly judge cooperation by its ability to deliver structural transformation and lasting efficiency, a standard transatlantic actors should be equally invested in. As the world looks for financing solutions, European leadership can play a meaningful role in supporting industrial priorities. Most recently, countries such as Italy, France, and Spain committed to bold steps at the Fourth Conference on Development Financing (FfD4), notably through sovereign debt alleviation initiatives. These are the kinds of innovative actions needed now. It is time for the EU to scale up its member states’ creativity, meet the ambitions of the FfD4, and invest in its own sustainable and strategic future.

This is not charity. It is the foundation of a more resilient multilateral order, one in which transatlanticism strengthens all Atlantic shores.