Malawi university students feel impact of US aid freeze

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BLANTYRE, MALAWI — Pub­lic uni­ver­si­ties in Malawi have ordered all stu­dents spon­sored by USAID to drop out or seek oth­er sources of fund­ing if they want to remain in school. This fol­lows the 90-day freeze on U.S. for­eign assis­tance recent­ly announced by Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump.

How­ev­er, Malawi’s gov­ern­ment says it is work­ing to ensure that stu­dents can con­tin­ue their education. 

USAID has pro­vid­ed finan­cial sup­port to thou­sands of stu­dents in sev­er­al Malawi uni­ver­si­ties, includ­ing the Lilong­we Uni­ver­si­ty of Agri­cul­ture and Nat­ur­al Resources, Mzuzu Uni­ver­si­ty, Kamuzu Uni­ver­si­ty of Health Sci­ences, and the Malawi Uni­ver­si­ty of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy or MUST. 

James Mphande, the com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er at MUST, said the U.S. for­eign aid freeze is a big blow to sev­er­al USAID-fund­ed projects the school was implementing. 

“And what it means now is that every­thing has been sus­pend­ed,” he said. “So, if we were devel­op­ing a cur­ricu­lum, we can’t pro­ceed. If we had some out­reach activ­i­ties, we can’t pro­ceed. If we were in the process of mak­ing some pro­cure­ments, we can’t proceed.” 

He said some spon­sored stu­dents may face the impact next semester. 

“For­tu­nate­ly, we are in the mid­dle of a semes­ter. So, prob­a­bly fees or sup­port for this semes­ter was already sort­ed out. But for the upcom­ing semes­ters or years, it means the stu­dents will have to look else­where for sup­port or they risk with­draw­ing,” Mphande said. 

How­ev­er, Patience Yamikani Chak­wana, a ben­e­fi­cia­ry of USAID at MUST, told VOA that she is already feel­ing the impact. 

Chak­wana, a first-year stu­dent in busi­ness infor­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy, said the for­eign aid sus­pen­sion was imposed before stu­dents received mon­ey for their dai­ly upkeep. 

“It was real­ly unex­pect­ed. It was, like, we have just start­ed school after a week, then we are get­ting the news,” she said. “At the time, we didn’t have the mon­ey, and the pock­et mon­ey had not been giv­en. … I heard the news while I was in class. I didn’t know what to do. That was the only hope I had.” 

Chak­wana said USAID was pay­ing for her tuition and accom­mo­da­tion, as well as giv­ing her mon­ey for gro­ceries and the inter­net con­nec­tion for her mobile phone. 

She said she now sur­vives on mon­ey she bor­rows from friends. 

Jessie Kab­wila, Malawi’s min­is­ter of high­er edu­ca­tion, said the aid sus­pen­sion is dis­cour­ag­ing, but the Malawi gov­ern­ment is work­ing to find oth­er sources to help students. 

“We have engaged local part­ner­ships that are in the pri­vate sec­tor to see how they can help us. We have also engaged inter­na­tion­al part­ners. For exam­ple, we have got a stand­ing agree­ment with the Repub­lic of Moroc­co. We have also engaged the Czech Repub­lic, and we will be engag­ing oth­ers, too,” Kab­wila said. 

Alexan­der Kude, deputy direc­tor for the Com­mon­wealth Stu­dents Asso­ci­a­tion, told VOA that the U.S. for­eign aid sus­pen­sion should be a wake-up call for devel­op­ing coun­tries to start invest­ing more in edu­ca­tion and reduce overde­pen­dence on for­eign aid. 

“Look, the bud­get that the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca uses to fund us through USAID, it’s just a per­cent of their mon­ey and bud­get. If you look how much that is and where they get it from, why not stand alone and do it our­selves?” Kude said.

The Trump admin­is­tra­tion says it imposed the 90-day freeze to review USAID spend­ing and make sure it aligns with U.S. pol­i­cy and inter­ests. The freeze will extend through April 20.