Access to justice: aid cuts threaten vital work of civil society organisations across Africa
Zach TheilerMonday 26 October 2026
Across Africa, civil society groups promoting access to fair justice systems have seen their work disrupted by the abrupt loss of foreign assistance. The impact has been significant for the disadvantaged people they serve, while the work of NGOs attempting to reform dysfunctional judicial systems has been halted.
Since 2022, eight of the ten largest foreign aid donor countries have substantially cut their budgets. Most notably, the Trump administration shuttered the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in early 2025, cancelling around $60bn in foreign assistance grants and contracts – in 2024-25, this included $1.6bn allocated to rule of law programmes. In some countries, cuts have been made to prioritise defence spending. The US cited a need to reduce federal spending as part of its rationale for the cuts.
Access to justice in Africa is heavily reliant on foreign aid, says Musa Kika, Executive Director for the Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa (IHRDA), a Gambia-based NGO. The organisation is focused on providing legal education and pro bono representation to defendants in major human rights cases.
Often, IHRDA’s cases oppose governments who hinder individuals from acquiring legal services while increasing the cost of action through lengthy trials. Such practices allow governments to intimidate individuals by using lawsuits and the prospect of prison time and fines. ‘We call it judicial harassment,’ Kika says. He explains that such cases are drawn out until the finances and wellbeing of those involved have been so adversely affected that they give in to the government.
People across the continent often rely on NGOs for legal help, but with less foreign aid available, this lifeline has been cut. Kika estimates that IHRDA’s budget has been reduced by 20 per cent due to aid cuts, limiting the organisation’s capacity for new cases. Many of its smaller partner NGOs are being forced to close.
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Some of my colleagues think that this is just a phase, and development aid is going to bounce back. I don’t think so
Musa Kika
Executive Director, Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa
In Malawi, the government has applied strict registration protocols to the NGO sector. Small NGOs rarely have in-house legal counsel, and these requirements can give authorities reason to strip the registration from organisations for political reasons. The Malawi government says the requirements aim to increase transparency in the sector and target sham charities used as a front for illicit activity, for example.
One of IHRDA’s partner organisations in Malawi sought to challenge a recent order mandating their closure and reached out for support. When Kika spoke to donors and asked for urgent funds to support them, no money was forthcoming. He believes the NGO will probably close simply because they lack the re
Elsewhere, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the government has cracked down on press freedom by accusing journalists criticising it of defamation. The country lacks a functioning public defender service, and many local journalists are unaware of their legal rights and unable to hire a lawyer. ‘They are afraid for their lives’ and often self-censor, says Nadine Kampire, a Congolese lawyer and journalist living in Rwanda. Kampire co-founded Afia-Amani Grands Lacs, an NGO that provides legal support to journalists in the DRC.
With partners funded by USAID, Kampire’s team relocated DRC-based journalists accused of defamation to different countries where they could safely prepare their legal defence. They successfully defended one journalist after an eight-month legal battle, and by 2025, had relocated five others facing similar charges. But when US aid was cut, they were forced to cease these efforts and hope that the government would simply forget about the cases.
In other contexts, judicial systems may be inaccessible not by design, but due to lack of capacity. ‘It may be that the country wants to put those things into place, but they don’t even have the re officer of the IBA Access to Justice Committee
For example, in Kenya, the loss of foreign assistance curtailed efforts to establish the country’s first public defender service. According to an audit commissioned by the National Council on Administration of Justice, an estimated 70 per cent of cases in the Kenyan criminal justice system relate to petty offences. Such offences include being ‘idle and disorderly’, which can be construed as begging, and disproportionately target impoverished communities.
Defendants often can’t afford legal representation or to make bail, even where it’s a small amount of money, says Shamini Jayanathan, a barrister from the UK and co-founder of Justice Initiatives Global, a Nairobi-based NGO providing pro bono legal services for impoverished people. She estimates that half of those in prison in Kenya are awaiting trial. But because there isn’t a functioning public defender service, many people will represent themselves in court, which often leads to harsher sentencing than if they had legal advice or pleaded guilty.
If the defendant is the primary or sole provider for their family, their time away from home can plunge those left behind into financial crisis, compounding the economic pressures that keep impoverished communities struggling over generations.
Beginning in mid-2024 with the help of US foreign aid, Justice Initiatives Global trained four public defenders who provided free legal representation to approximately 400 disadvantaged people accused of misdemeanours in Nairobi’s busiest district.
One defendant was a woman accused of petty theft and unable to afford bail, which stood at around $80. But Jayanathan’s team lowered the bail to a point where her family could afford to pay it, and later, the case was dismissed. ‘Had she not had us, she would have probably been stuck in custody, separated from her two-year-old child,’ says Jayanathan. ‘We don’t know how long that case might have gone on for without a proper review and a determination that there was insufficient evidence after all.’
But the NGO’s project was cancelled after six months due to the US foreign assistance cuts made in early 2025. Jayanathan had hoped to demonstrate to the Kenyan government that a public defender service had socio-economic benefits and cost-saving potential by lowering the number of inmates in prison. But despite promising indicators, the work halted before it could influence policy.
Kika believes that aid cuts have forced a reckoning in NGO-led justice reform. Practitioners need to explore new ways to sustainably fund their operations through domestic endowments, investments and philanthropy to avoid the ‘same mistake of relying 100 per cent on foreign aid,’ he says. ‘Some of my colleagues think that this is just a phase, and development aid is going to bounce back. I don’t think so.’
Header image: Riccardo Niels Mayer/Adobe Stock
