Introduction
In light of the shifting geopolitical landscape, I conducted a comprehensive analysis of historical USAID funding in Africa to quantify potential policy impacts. By leveraging public data from U.S. foreign assistance database and applying a multi-tool analytical approach, I’ve created an interactive visualization that provides critical context for policymakers and development professionals.
This project showcases my ability to bridge international relations expertise with data analytics to produce actionable insights and inform strategic decision-making.
Problem Statement
Recent policy shifts within the U.S. government, particularly under the second Trump administration, have raised questions about the future of funding within Africa . African governments and NGOs face the urgent challenge of understanding the potential scale and scope of these changes to prepare for the funding reductions and seek alternative resources.
APPROACH
Data Acquisition & Cleaning: I sourced historical USAID funding data from ForeignAssistance.gov. I used Excel for initial data cleaning and preprocessing to standardize country names, convert currency formats, and handle missing values.
Advanced Analysis: I migrated the clean data into R, where I conducted statistical analysis to identify key funding trends, regional distribution patterns, and top-funded sectors. I used libraries like tidyverse and dplyr to structure and aggregate the data efficiently.
Interactive Visualization: The final, cleaned dataset was imported into Power BI to create an interactive dashboard. The dashboard allows users to filter by country, sector, and year to explore specific funding profiles and trends
KEY FINDINGS
- By 2024 a total of $136.1 billion had been disbursed to African nations.
- $48 Billion (35% of total funding) had been directed to Health & Population initiatives, making it the top-funded sector.
- Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have been the primary implementing partners for USAID across the continent.
- East Africa emerged as the leading recipient region with $60 Billion in funding which is 44% of all regional allocations historically. West Africa was the second-largest recipient region.
These findings provide critical context for understanding the potential impacts of current policy shifts on development programs throughout Africa. The data suggests that significant funding reductions could particularly affect health systems and NGO operations across Africa. However it also shows an opportunity for diversification by accelerating partnerships with non-traditional donors such as the EU, Gulf States and private-sector actors
The main question for African governments is, what strategies should they prioritize to diversify resources towards development?
For detailed country profiles and sector-specific analyses, explore the interactive visualization I’ve created below.