From Fragility to Fortitude report by EPIC-Africa and @AfricanNGOs
In January 2025, an executive order from the United States government froze and later cancelled most foreign development assistance.
It was an upstream political decision, but its deepest impacts were felt far downstream: in rural clinics, community schools, women’s cooperatives, and grassroots advocacy offices across Africa.
For African Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), the 90-day freeze was not a mere pause.
As the new From Fragility to Fortitude report by EPIC-Africa and @AfricanNGOs reveals, it was “a rupture that exposed the brittle scaffolding of donor-dependent systems.”
The report is based on the first pan-African survey of the crisis, capturing responses from more than 550 CSOs in 42 countries, including 364 from across Africa.
Together, they provide the most comprehensive view yet of how the funding collapse ricocheted through the continent’s civil society ecosystem and what must change if the sector is to survive and thrive.
A Continent-Wide Shockwave
Almost half of USG-funded African CSOs reported budget cuts of 50% or more.
Over 60% had to suspend or scale back core programs, and for at least one in five organizations, entire program areas collapsed.
“These were not marginal losses,” the report underscores.
“They were frontline and lifeline interventions in health, education, livelihoods, emergency assistance, and other critical areas, often the only such services available in their communities.”
The damage went beyond direct grantees.
One-third of affected organizations had never received U.S. government funds, yet 41.3% still reported service disruptions.
The reason: the collapse of coalitions, partnerships, and shared service platforms that many local actors depended on.
Aid in Africa does not move in silos, the report notes, and neither does its collapse.
The Numbers Behind the Human Cost
The survey findings reveal a sector with little capacity to absorb such a shock:
- 38.3% of USG-funded CSOs lost more than half of their projected 2025 budgets.
- 21.8% lost more than 75% of funding.
- 55.6% said they will be unable to meet most of their 2025 goals.
- 64% reported that their survival is “severely threatened.”
The impacts were most acute in essential service areas:
- Health services accounted for 36.6% of severely affected organizations.
- HIV/AIDS interventions made up 26.7%.
- Education programs represented 25.9%.
Staffing cuts were widespread, with 57.8% of CSOs reducing personnel.
Program cancellations or downsizing affected 64.6% of organizations, eroding community trust and weakening long-standing support systems.
The report makes clear that the crisis has put vulnerable populations, women, children, displaced people, and marginalized communities at particular risk.
“The impacts of these cuts go beyond immediate losses,” it warns. “They threaten to erode public trust in civil society’s ability to deliver.”
A Fragile Funding Model
The crisis has thrown into sharp relief the sector’s structural weaknesses.
Over half of directly funded CSOs had annual budgets under US$250,000 before the freeze.
With limited reserves and highly restricted donor funding, these organizations had no margin for adaptation.
“The overwhelming reliance on projectized, externally controlled grants meant that when funding disappeared, many organizations had no margin, no reserves, and no plan B,” the report states.
Only 11% of affected CSOs have secured alternative financing.
A striking 86.9% are still searching, and 52.7% express low or no confidence in their ability to replace lost income.
The barriers are clear: limited fundraising capacity, intense competition for replacement funds, and a lack of visibility among potential local donors.
Beyond Survival: A Call to Reimagine
Yet From Fragility to Fortitude is not only a ledger of losses, it is a rallying cry for transformation. “CSOs are not asking for a return to normal,” the report asserts.
“They are calling for a new compact: one built on equity, durability, and shared responsibility.”
An overwhelming 93.8% of survey respondents expressed willingness to collaborate on long-term solutions.
Many have already begun experimenting with new approaches: diversifying funding streams, building local philanthropy, moving programs online, and forming coalitions to share costs.
The report frames these efforts not as stopgaps, but as steps toward a more sovereign and resilient civil society sector.
Four Strategic Pillars for Change
From the collective insights of hundreds of organizations, the report distills four strategic pillars for reform:
- Capital – Shift from project-driven aid to flexible, multi-year, core funding that allows CSOs to build reserves and adapt to changing needs.
- System – Move from fragmented, siloed interventions to strong ecosystem infrastructure, including shared data systems, robust networks, and intermediary support platforms.
- Partnership – Transform donor relationships from compliance-heavy oversight to genuine co-creation, recognizing CSOs as equal partners in development.
- Innovation – Prioritize African-designed solutions over donor-driven pilots, investing in scalable, context-specific models.
“These pillars are not aspirational or new,” the report observes.
“They reflect what African CSOs have long, and consistently, identified as the tools of sustainability.”
The Sustainability Blueprint
The report’s single core recommendation is the co-creation of an African CSO Sustainability Blueprint, a practical, African-led framework for survival, adaptation, and growth.
The blueprint must center African leadership, engage governments, donors, intermediaries, and communities, and offer pathways for both immediate recovery and long-term resilience.
Proposed actions include:
- Diversifying income through local fundraising, service fees, and pooled funds.
- Protecting reserves to cushion against shocks.
- Building civil society infrastructure, from digital capacity to governance and financial management systems.
- Creating national and regional giving campaigns supported by tax incentives.
- Establishing matching funds or sovereign social investment vehicles to draw in diaspora and private sector capital.
Governments, the report urges, should co-finance CSO programs aligned with national priorities, ensure enabling legal environments, and integrate CSOs into policy and emergency planning.
Funders should provide flexible, core support, back experimental models, and invest in the connective tissue networks, platforms, and data systems that make resilience possible.
The authors are clear: philanthropy alone cannot replace the scale of government aid that has been lost.
But it can “bolster organizations on the frontlines, and catalyse and underwrite” the systemic changes needed to safeguard Africa’s civic space and development capacity.
The goal, as the report frames it, is not just to weather the storm but to chart “a more sovereign, sustainable, and self-determined civil society in Africa, led from within, and built to last.”
This will require coordinated action: funders changing how they fund, CSOs leading collectively, and governments recognizing civil society as essential public infrastructure.
A Turning Point
The conclusion of From Fragility to Fortitude is both caution and challenge:
“Africa’s social progress, civic space, and development delivery capacity are under immediate threat. This moment is a wake-up call. It is a turning point for African civil society. The call is not to restore the past, but to co-create a better future: African-led, regionally supported, globally respected.” It states.
If the rhythm of the song has changed, as the African proverb cited in the report suggests, then so must the dance steps.
The question now is whether all players, local, regional, and global, are willing to move in time.
