By Jesse Masai
THE LIVING CHURCH
February 7, 2025
Archbishop Jackson Ole Sapit addresses reporters February 6. | St. Paul’s University, Limuru
The Archbishop of Kenya sees some hope in President Donald Trump’s move to shut down the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
“I partially thank Trump for the disruption,” Archbishop Jackson Ole Sapit said at an event at St. Paul’s University in Limuru on February 6.
“Let us be disrupted so that we think properly and manage our resources properly. Every other economy grew not in easy times but when you are faced by a crisis. They think deeper, and I hope we can think deeper now.”
Ole Sapit declared that it is time African leaders sought home-grown solutions to the continent’s woes, and claimed that foreign aid has often been misappropriated in the East African nation.
“USAID projects have been shut down,” he said. “People have lost jobs. But deficiency in leadership is our main problem. Let that money go so that we know how to save the little we have. Because most of it is stolen before it reaches where it is supposed to go.”
Kenya scored 31 on a scale from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean) on Transparency International’s 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index. It tied with El Salvador and Mexico for 126th place.
Ole Sapit said that Africa has all the resources it needs for its people to thrive, but these resources have become drivers of conflicts in parts of the region because of greed.
“We are witnessing what is essentially a struggle over resources in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” he said, referring to recent fallouts between the government in the capital, Kinshasa, and M23 rebels in Goma, on Congo’s eastern border.
Conflicts also continue in the Horn of Africa, including parts of South Sudan, where an estimated 57 percent of food security is dependent on USAID.
The archbishop warned that Africans might no longer be in a position to blame colonialism for underdevelopment.
“We have no excuses, 50 or 70 years after independence,” he said. “Disruption is always an opportunity to grow.”
Still, Ole Sapit called on President Trump to stagger the transition to avoid immediate shocks.
“It should have been done gradually, especially for critical areas like health, until we have the capacity to support ourselves,” he said.
In an exclusive interview with The Living Church, Adieri Bwibo, executive director of Kenya’s Anglican Development Services (ADS), revealed that USAID’s abrupt exit has seriously affected his organization.
“KShs. 200 million per annum [$1.550,387 USD] is gone suddenly. Our income is at its lowest, including that which caters for anti-retroviral drugs for communities ravaged by HIV/AIDS,” he said. “We don’t know how to continue; 150 of our staff members have been affected. We have put them on unpaid leave as we figure a way out.”
Bwibo said health, economic empowerment, HIV prevention, referrals to HIV facilities, smart farming for food security, climate change, orphans, and vulnerable children are some of the development agency’s programs that have been affected.
“We had until January 24 to clear all USAID-related payments. We are now talking about offices rented, human, and other contractual obligations — human and statutory — that we must meet. We can’t bury our heads in the sand and think all will be well. We are forced to go back and strategize,” he said.
Time, he warned, has come for Kenyans to look at their programs as a nation.
“While churches and charitable institutions will complement the work of the government, revenue from citizens needs to be used well,” he said. “That is something we need to focus on. We have over-relied on the generosity of our brothers and sisters from the West.”
Kenya’s local governments provide a model for the future, he said.
“Devolution has transformed this country. Everywhere you go, there is development, with emerging towns and businesses,” he said.
Writing on Meta, however, literature professor Wandia Njoya warned that “the problem the Trump administration has with USAID is one of style, not substance.”
“The USAID suppressed organic economic growth in Kenya and mopped up generations of graduates and mobilizers through funding, so as to delay social change. Every new generation that would have potentially marshaled change in Kenya was co-opted into international trips, donor funding, workshops, and fellowships,” said Njoya, an associate professor at the evangelical Daystar University in Nairobi.
“I think the lesson here isn’t Trump or insane U.S. liberals. It’s that we must learn,” she said. “Please, Kenyans. We must learn about the world. Only we can develop our own countries. The commitment of the American empire is that we don’t. We have to understand this fundamental truth to understand why the U.S. needed this monster called development aid.”
Jesse Masai is TLC’s East Africa correspondent, a longtime journalist and communications professional who has worked in South East Asia and the U.S., as well as in his native Kenya.
I worked years ago at a federal foreign aid agency and could see some of the desperation faced by many recipients. We should pray that the churches will be motivated to do more of this work and that this will contribute not only to the sick and hungry recipients but to the spiritual revitalization of the donors. This transcends the controversy about governments doing this work.