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"The future belongs to us": Reactions to the USAID Freeze in the DRC
From 2022 to 2024, the United States provided nearly $3 billion in humanitarian and bilateral assistance to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), accounting for over half of the country’s total aid. This brief (available in English and French) explores how the aid freeze—an event with immediate humanitarian consequences and deeper political undertones—was perceived and debated across X and Facebook in the DRC from February to March 2025. The anger and criticisms expressed online in response to the US aid freeze goes far beyond disappointment. These reactions reflect a deeper and more widespread frustration—one that positions foreign aid not as a lifeline, but as a symptom of a broken system. In a context like eastern DRC, destabilised by the enduring M23 conflict, such narratives can quickly move from frustration typed into a phone or computer to real-world mobilisation. There are growing concerns that the aid suspension—combined with perceptions of foreign interference—could fuel protests, civil unrest, or even targeted violence against aid workers.
The comments analysed in this brief don’t just criticise USAID—they question the entire logic of international aid. They accuse donors of prolonging conflict, enabling corruption, and manipulating national politics. They target individual aid workers and agencies, spread conspiracy theories, and call for an end to all foreign involvement. These are not isolated remarks. They are repeated, echoed, and shared across platforms, forming a larger narrative that poses a security risk for those working within it, undermines the collective reputation of the aid sector and poses serious challenges to the adjustment of the aid sector to the withdrawal of the United States from international aid