Africa

1. Impact of USAID cuts
2. AU needs ‘urgent reform’
3. South Africa’s US farm visas
4. Rebels break DRC truce
5. A meme coin experiment

An Angolan cinema that’s among the world’s most endangered monuments.

Countries worst hit by USAID cuts

Seven African countries will be hit the hardest by the Trump administration’s funding cuts to the US Agency for International Development (USAID), according to development analysts.

DR Congo, Ethiopia, Liberia, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Uganda received more than a fifth of their total development assistance from USAID, said researchers at the Center for Global Development. The small size of their economies means that aid accounts for an average of 11% of their gross national income: “With USAID providing 30% of [development assistance], the freeze could create a shortfall equivalent to over 3% of GNI,” the researchers said, triggering “a potentially major economic shock.” In all but two of these countries, USAID’s focus is categorized as “emergency response”: Basic health is the main sector targeted in Liberia, while in Uganda it is reproductive health. USAID spent more than $12 billion in sub-Saharan Africa in 2024, according to government records, the majority on humanitarian and health aid. DR Congo received the largest amount of aid, at $1.3 billion, followed by Ethiopia and Sudan.

— Yinka Adegoke

African Union needs ‘urgent reform’

The African Union needs a major overhaul to address the continent’s biggest challenges as the US steps away from Africa, analysts told Semafor.

Over the weekend, the body of 55 member states will elect a new chair of its commission to succeed Moussa Faki Mahamat, Chad’s former prime minister, during a summit in Addis Ababa. Vying for the top role are former Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga, Madagascar’s ex-Finance Minister Richard Randriamandrato, and former Djiboutian Foreign Affairs Minister Mahmoud Ali Youssouf.

The dismantling of USAID presents an opportunity for the AU to strengthen its regional role on everything from health care to agriculture and trade. Mavis Owusu-Gyamfi, president of the African Center for Economic Transformation think tank in Ghana, said the AU Commission will need to “develop a strong position in the G20,” which the bloc joined in 2023, “especially as the US leaves a vacuum of leadership.”

US visas for S. African farmworkers

The number of temporary farmworker visas the US issued to South Africans in 2024, a new high. The figures were reported by Bloomberg a week after US President Donald Trump offered to rehouse white South Africans as refugees, falsely claiming that Pretoria was seizing private property under new land laws. Most of the South African farm laborers in the US are white. Pretoria’s controversial Expropriation Act has seen Trump cut off aid to the nation. It also triggered a legal challenge from the white-led Democratic Alliance party, the second-largest in South Africa’s ruling coalition, which says President Cyril Ramaphosa pushed through the law against its advice.

M23 resumes attacks in DR Congo

A rebel alliance led by the Rwanda-backed M23 militia resumed its attacks in DR Congo after a brief lull in fighting despite calls from regional leaders to respect a ceasefire. The rebels, who last month seized the key city of Goma in the country’s mineral-rich east, previously vowed to take control of the entire nation, sparking fears of an even larger humanitarian crisis. The conflict has already forced hundreds of thousands to flee, with many seeking refuge in neighboring countries. The acceleration of the conflict comes as local aid groups have come under immense strain after Washington’s USAID cuts. Foreign aid accounted for 70% of the DR Congo’s humanitarian operations last year.

CAR’s meme coin fails to take off

Central African Republic President Faustin-Archange Touadéra launched a meme coin in a bid to raise the country’s profile — only for it to crash within days. Writing in a post on X on Sunday, Touadéra said the coin was an “experiment” to “unite people, support national development, and put the Central African Republic on the world stage.” It comes nearly three years after Touadéra’s government became only the second in the world after El Salvador to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. Meme coins — cryptocurrency tokens whose value is driven by speculation and popularity among traders — are a way to raise funds. But the $CAR meme coin had lost 95% of its value by Tuesday, having begun trading a day earlier, according to the Financial Times, undermined by fears that it was an “elaborate fake.”

John Mbadi Ngongó, Cabinet Secretary for the National Treasury & Economic Planning, Kenya, will speak at Semafor’s 2025 World Economy Summit. Coinciding with the IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings, the World Economy Summit will unite private and public sector leaders — including US Cabinet officials, congressional leadership, global finance ministers, and central bankers — to explore innovative solutions for expanding the global economy.

Apr. 23–25, 2025 | Washington, DC | Join Waitlist

Business & Macro

🇰🇪 Kenya’s cabinet approved a $33 billion budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year, based on a 5.3% growth forecast for this year and next.

🇿🇲 Zambia’s central bank raised its benchmark interest rate by half a percentage point to 14.5%, as inflation remained unchanged at over 16% in January.

Climate & Energy

🇨🇬 Zanaga Iron Ore Company signed an agreement with Congo Brazzaville’s Centrale Électrique du Congo, a mostly government-owned electricity producer, to potentially supply power to one of Zanaga’s projects.

Geopolitics & Policy

🇿🇦 Joel Pollak, a Johannesburg-born editor for the right-wing American publication Breitbart News, is poised to be named US President Donald Trump’s envoy to South Africa.

🇸🇸 South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir sacked two vice presidents in a cabinet shuffle that saw him appoint new ministers for agriculture and health, and a new head for the National Security Service spy agency.

Tech & Deals

🇿🇦 Warner Music Group fully acquired South African music distribution and artist development company Africori. Warner first invested in the company in 2020 and took a majority stake two years later.

🇳🇬 The International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group, made a $50 million equity investment in Lagos Free Zone to back industrial development in Nigeria’s first deep-sea port-based economic zone.

A modernist cinema in Angola has been placed on a list of endangered global monuments. Construction on Cinema Studio Namibe, in Moçâmedes, began in 1973 but was never finished as the Angolan Civil War broke out two years later. Designed by Portuguese architect José Botelho Pereira, it is “a prime example of tropical modernist architecture,” reported Wallpaper. The cinema is one of the 25 endangered sites placed on the World Monuments Fund’s biennial list, which highlights places of global significance deemed most in need of restoration. The cinema “lies in a state of decay, but a community effort could breathe new life into an unfinished landmark,” WMF said.

In his first weeks in office, Donald Trump has flooded the zone with executive orders, impromptu press conferences, and boundaries-testing moves to slash government — a strategy that Steve Bannon articulated during Trump’s first term.

Bannon spoke to Semafor’s Ben Smith about why he thinks the strategy — which he’s calling Trump’s “Days of Thunder” — is working brilliantly this time around. “The media is a complete total meltdown,” he said.

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— Alexis Akwagyiram, Preeti Jha, Alexander Onukwue, and Yinka Adegoke.