Get To Know a Federal Agency – The African Development Foundation (USADF)

There are 630 federal departments, agencies, and commissions.  Approximately 400 have regulatory power. Half could be eliminated and most of the nation wouldn’t notice. The loss of liberty in the United States is proportional to the size and scope of the federal government. The larger the federal government gets; the fewer the rights the states, and the people, retain. ~ Ed Haas

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2023 there were 36.8 million people living in poverty in the United States. This represented 11.1 percent of the total U.S. population. In that same year, billions of taxpayer dollars were sent around the world supposedly to help people living in poverty. The U.S. Constitution does not require the federal government to provide food, clothing, and shelter for its own citizens. The founding fathers knew helping people in need was best left to local communities. Never was the federal government of the United States to be engaged in global charity, especially when the nation is $36.3 trillion in debt! 

Even in life-or-death emergencies, short term humanitarian aid for starving populations is best left to charitable organizations because “charity” from the U.S. government is so expensive, especially when approximately 37 million people in America are living in poverty. The United States throws money around the world like a drunk fool with a new high limit credit card while millions of Americans struggle. If the federal government is going to continue increasing the national debt at the U.S. taxpayer’s expense, shouldn’t Americans be at the head of the line to receive before the government gives overseas? The concept of “America First” is not about isolationism. It’s about taking care of Americans before we help people in need elsewhere around the world.

Living in poverty in the United States is far different than living in poverty in many other countries. High income nations like the United States, Great Britian, France, and Germany have a higher standard of living even for the populations living in poverty. People living in poverty in the United States are not typically in danger of dying from dehydration, malnutrition, or starvation. Being “poor” in the United States means something different than being “poor” in Niger.

For 2023, the poverty threshold for an individual in the U.S. was $14,891 annually, while for a family of four, it was $29,960.  In 2024, over 11 percent of the world population lived in extreme poverty, with the poverty threshold being set at $2.15 a day. This amounts to an annual income of $785 compared to the individual poverty threshold of $14,891 in the United States. The continent of Africa has the top five poorest countries in the world. (Burundi, Central African Republic, South Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia)

The United States provides approximately $48 billion per year in global foreign aid with 32 percent of this aid going to countries in Africa. This works out to be approximately $15.4 billion a year from the United States to Africa. Many other countries provide aid to Africa. So do large corporations and charities. Corruption, general lawlessness, and civil wars have all suppressed the fundamental goal of decades worth of foreign aid poured into Africa. The people are barely better off. Africa remains the richest continent on the planet when measured by its natural resources and the poorest continent on earth when measured by its population.

It is on this backdrop that we look at The African Development Foundation (USADF).

The African Development Foundation (USADF) provides grants to community groups and small enterprises that benefit under-served and marginalized groups in Africa. Congress appropriated $45 million for FY 2023 to the African Development Foundation, a $5 million increase over FY 2022. The FY 2023 appropriation and leveraged funding brought USADF’s operating budget to $70.43 million, the largest in the agency’s 43-year history.

USADF is an independent U.S. Government agency established by Congress in 1980 to invest in African grassroots organizations, entrepreneurs, and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). USADF’s investments promote local economic development by increasing incomes, revenues, and jobs and creating pathways to prosperity for marginalized populations and underserved communities across the continent.

USADF focuses on frontier markets in Africa. It currently operates in 22 African countries and has made grant investments in more than 40 countries continent-wide.

Over the last five years (FY 2019-FY 2023), USADF has invested more than US $141 million directly into over 1,000 African owned and African-led enterprises and impacted more than 2.6 million lives. USADF is aligned with U.S. national security and economic priorities for Africa and creates new markets and shared prosperity for Africans and Americans alike by investing in communities that are often left behind in Africa’s growth story.

While all this sounds great, generous, and charitable of the United States, is the work of USADF an authentically constitutional endeavor for the federal government of the United States?

The federal government is not meant to take care of people’s basic needs. The federal government was not established to provide food, clothing, and shelter for the needy, unwilling or unable people to provide for themselves. Individual states should be taking care of the needs of the citizens as the populations of the states see fit through their legislators. Livability challenges are unique to cities and counties within states. There’s not a one size fits all solution that the federal government can provide. If there was such a solution, it would have long since been created.

President Lyndon B Johnson declared a war on poverty in 1964. Sixty years ago, approximately 19 percent of the U.S. population lived in poverty. Today it stands at 11 percent. Trillions and trillions of dollars have been spent to lift Americans out of poverty. Progress has been made but is it enough? We cannot yet declare victory, can we? Until such time, should we be sending foreign aid around the world when approximately 37 million Americans are living in poverty? Even though the federal government should not be in the charity business, if it insists shouldn’t Americans be taken care of first?

Our national debt is $36.3 trillion. We must cut costs.

Unpopular and difficult decisions must be made. (9 of 630 in this series) ~ Ed Haas