USAID, the official US foreign aid and humanitarian agency, has reduced poverty, food insecurity, and the spread of infectious diseases globally. Lesser-known goals include spreading peace and democracy worldwide, but critics have argued that dismantling USAID would promote self-sufficiency and peace in Africa. Its abrupt closure offers a chance to study the true effects of this program. To meaningfully compare regions across the African continent, Rohner et al. measured aid per capita and violence (see the Perspective by Dreher). The early, large-scale evidence found that abruptly ending aid triggered higher spikes of violence (armed battles, riots, and protests) in the same areas that previously received higher aid per capita. This suggests that sudden (rather than gradual) USAID cuts undermined democratic governance and precipitated civil unrest.
