The global development funding landscape changed dramatically in 2025, exposing vulnerabilities that had long been building beneath some of Africa’s most critical programmes. For Dr. Uchenna Igbokwe, Executive Director and CEO of the Solina Centre for International Development and Research (SCIDaR), the shock raised a bigger question: how can countries build health and development systems that remain resilient when external funding becomes uncertain?
In this conversation, Dr. Igbokwe reflects on what the disruption exposed, the choices SCIDaR made in response, and what he believes governments, development partners and African institutions must do differently to build systems that last. As SCIDaR marks its fifteenth anniversary, he argues that the future of development will depend less on the volume of funding mobilised and more on the strength of the institutions, partnerships and local leadership that remain when individual projects end.
Q1. Let’s start at the beginning. When the scale of the USAID cuts became clear in early 2025, what went through your mind?
The January 2025 U.S. foreign-assistance pause and subsequent USAID stop-work directives were one of those moments that forces you to confront just how interconnected our health systems have become.
My first thoughts were not about budgets or projects. They were about people, and my mind immediately went back to a recent visit to Jega LGA in Kebbi State, where I had spent time with PHC workers, community volunteers, mothers and their children. I couldn’t help but wonder what the stop-work order would mean for vulnerable people all over the world who depended on services funded through these mechanisms. At SCIDaR, we support 113 health facilities providing HIV services to more than 12,000 people. I knew that behind every funding cut announcement were patients wondering whether treatment would continue, healthcare workers trying to reassure anxious families, and government teams working urgently to understand the implications for essential services.
As the days unfolded, however, my concern evolved. Beyond the immediate disruption, I found myself asking a more uncomfortable question: how had we allowed critical services to become so vulnerable to decisions made thousands of miles away? For years, transition planning has often been treated as an activity that begins when donor support is ending. In reality, it should begin the day a programme starts. Sustainable systems are not built through good intentions at project close-out; they are built through deliberate investments in government ownership, local capacity, and financing mechanisms that can withstand uncertainty.
As CEO of SCIDaR, I was, of course, also thinking about our people and our programmes. I was thinking about the governments we partner with and the communities they serve. The stop-work order did not create the challenges facing our health systems. It simply exposed vulnerabilities that had existed for far too long and reminded us that resilience must be built long before it is tested.
Over the years, I have seen many programmes deliver exceptional results while donor funding is available, only to struggle once that support comes to an end. The issue is rarely that the intervention itself was ineffective. More often, it is that sustainability was never truly designed into the programme.
In my experience, these programmes tend to share three characteristics.
First, they are often designed around what external partners perceive countries need, rather than what governments and communities have jointly identified as their priorities. Governments may welcome the support, but they have not been sufficiently involved in shaping the agenda, and ownership never fully takes root.
Second, the implementation model is frequently imported. The tools, systems and processes that make the programme successful are designed with limited consideration for whether they are appropriate, affordable or maintainable within the local context. I have seen situations where governments inherit systems they cannot sustain not because they lack commitment, but because the technology, licensing costs or operating models were never designed with long-term local ownership in mind.
Finally, transition planning often begins far too late. We wait until a project is approaching its end before discussing capacity, financing and handover, when those conversations should have started from the very beginning. Successful transition requires deliberate investment in local capability, continuous hand-holding and careful monitoring long before external funding comes to an end. Without that, the handover becomes abrupt, and many of the gains begin to erode.
These lessons have fundamentally shaped how we work at SCIDaR. Sustainability is not something we discuss at project close-out; it is a design principle. From the outset, we think deliberately about political sustainability by ensuring governments own the priorities, operational sustainability by building on systems and tools that countries can realistically maintain, and financial sustainability by identifying pathways that can sustain essential services long after donor funding ends.
This thinking has increasingly pushed us towards models that do not rely solely on traditional donor financing. Through initiatives such as our Access to Finance work and partnerships with private-sector players across the health ecosystem, we are exploring more sustainable approaches to financing health. One example is the PACS project, which brings together Wema Bank, the Pharmacy Council of Nigeria, community pharmacists, patent and proprietary medicine vendors, and digital health innovators to mobilise domestic capital and strengthen local markets. These are the solutions that excite me most-because they are designed to endure well beyond the life of any single project.
That said, we must be careful not to pursue sustainability at the expense of effectiveness. Too often, sustainability becomes an excuse for deploying systems or programmes that ultimately fail to deliver meaningful results. At SCIDaR, we often say that you can only sustain what works. Our objective should therefore be to build solutions that are effective, scalable and capable of delivering impact long after external support has ended.
Q3. You have described this period as a ‘reset’ rather than a crisis. What convinced you that the contraction of aid could be a corrective rather than only a loss?
The stop-work order did not change my conviction that countries needed greater ownership of their health systems. I had believed that long before the funding landscape shifted. What changed was my confidence that this transition was not only necessary, but increasingly possible.
As governments began responding, the conversation became less about replacing donor funding and more about strengthening country leadership. That was an important shift. The question was no longer simply, ‘How do we keep programmes running?’ It became, ‘How do we build systems that can continue delivering results regardless of external funding?’
In Nigeria, we began to see encouraging signs of that transition. The Sector-Wide Approach (SWAp), which had already been conceived before the funding disruptions, suddenly became even more relevant because it positioned the government at the centre of coordinating the health sector, with development partners aligning behind nationally defined priorities rather than fragmented programmes. In many ways, this reflected the foresight of the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Professor Muhammad Ali Pate, whose health sector agenda had already laid the foundation for many of the reforms we are now seeing take shape. We are also seeing stronger momentum towards health sovereignty through the Presidential Initiative for Unlocking the Healthcare Value Chain (PVAC), reflecting a deliberate push to strengthen local manufacturing and build greater resilience across the health value chain in Nigeria.
Perhaps most encouraging was the speed and ambition of the Nigerian government’s response. The supplementary appropriation of the equivalent of US$200 million in the immediate aftermath of the stop-work order was not simply an emergency measure; it signalled a willingness to take greater ownership of the country’s health priorities. We also saw renewed momentum to reposition traditionally vertical, U.S. Government-supported HIV, tuberculosis and malaria programmes within a more integrated primary healthcare system. This approach connects disease-specific services with routine immunisation, family planning, and maternal, newborn and child health services, supported by health insurance, effective referral pathways and emergency transport. Such integration will preserve the gains from longstanding investments while building stronger systems that can endure beyond any single programme or funding cycle.
For me, that is why that period represents more than a crisis. It was an opportunity to reset the relationship between governments and development partners. External financing will continue to play an important role, but its greatest value is not in defining a country’s direction, it is in strengthening the direction that countries have already chosen. When development partners support nationally defined priorities, rather than shape them, they help build institutions and systems that endure long after individual projects have ended.
Q4. When the funding landscape shifted, what was the hardest decision you had to make in that period?
The hardest decision was resisting the instinct to retreat.
When uncertainty enters an organisation, the natural response is to become defensive, to pause investments, narrow your ambitions and focus on protecting what already exists. Like many organisations navigating that period, we had to adapt how we deployed our people and resources. But I was determined that those necessary adjustments would not become the defining story of SCIDaR.
Instead, we chose to keep building. We strengthened our research capability, accelerated our innovation agenda, expanded into education through our partnership with UBEC, deepened our government partnerships and deliberately diversified our portfolio. Those decisions required significant investment at a time when the future funding landscape was far from certain. They were not easy decisions, but I believed that if we responded only by preserving the status quo, we would emerge from the crisis smaller, not stronger.
What gave me confidence was the remarkable commitment of the people around me. Throughout that period, the team at SCIDaR consistently went above and beyond, demonstrating resilience, creativity and an unwavering commitment to the communities we serve. I am equally grateful to our Board, whose confidence and courage gave us the space to continue investing in the organisation’s future when a more cautious path would have been easier.
Leadership is often described as managing risk. I see it differently. Leadership is about discerning which risks are worth taking. At that moment, we believed the greater risk was allowing uncertainty to shrink our ambition. Looking back, choosing to continue building rather than simply preserving what we already had has positioned SCIDaR to emerge from the crisis stronger, more resilient and more diversified.
Q5. Of everything SCIDaR did in 2025, which move do you believe will matter most ten years from now?
If I had to choose one, it would be our expansion into education-not because it is separate from our work in health, but because it represents one of the most important investments we can make in Nigeria’s long-term development.
Health and education are deeply interconnected. Better education leads to healthier populations, stronger livelihoods and more productive economies, while healthier children are better able to learn, thrive and contribute meaningfully to society. Strengthening one inevitably strengthens the other.
This conviction led us to deepen our work in education. We were not expanding into a new sector simply for growth; we saw an opportunity to apply the same approach that has shaped our work in health, partnering with the government to strengthen institutions, build local capacity and translate reform into measurable results.
Our partnership with the Universal Basic Education Commission reflects this philosophy. Under the broader Nigeria Education Sector Renewal Initiative led by the Honourable Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, and the leadership of UBEC’s Executive Secretary, Dr. Aisha Garba, the Commission is implementing its 2025-2031 Strategic Blueprint and advancing reforms in digital planning, performance management, infrastructure standards, education technology and financing. SCIDaR has supported this agenda through strategic planning, institutional strengthening, implementation monitoring and stakeholder coordination.
I am particularly proud that we supported the development of UBEC’s 2025-2031 Strategic Blueprint and the redesign of the two-decade-old Basic Education Action Plan into a more structured, digital and results-oriented planning framework. These reforms have contributed to unlocking more than ?167 billion in Matching Grant intervention funds across Nigeria’s 36 states and the FCT.
When I think about SCIDaR’s greatest contribution over the next decade, I think about the children who will benefit from the stronger institutions we are helping to build today. Nigeria’s ambition to become a trillion-dollar economy ultimately depends on the quality of its human capital. By strengthening education systems now, we are investing in the people who will drive that future. That, to me, is an impact that will endure.
Q6. You often speak of three elements that must align for impact to be sustainable: policy and systems, product and market infrastructure, and the client journey. Which is most often neglected, and what does neglecting it cost?
The three are deeply interconnected, so I would hesitate to elevate one at the expense of the others. Sustainable impact only happens when sound policy and systems, strong product and market infrastructure, and a well-designed client journey reinforce one another. But if I had to identify the element that is most frequently neglected, it would be the client journey.
That is understandable because the client journey is often the hardest to measure. Organisations naturally focus on developing policies, strengthening systems, mobilising resources and delivering programmes. Those are all essential. But somewhere along the way, it becomes easy to lose sight of how people actually experience those interventions. A programme can be technically sound and operationally efficient, yet still fail to achieve its intended impact if it does not reflect the realities of the people it is designed to serve.
At SCIDaR, we have deliberately tried to bridge that gap by ensuring that technical excellence is always complemented by empathy and practicality. Whether through initiatives like CROWN, where trusted women strengthen the connection between communities and the health system, or through our Adopt a PHC initiative, where we work closely with frontline health workers, community leaders and patients to strengthen primary healthcare, we constantly remind ourselves that lasting change is experienced by people before it is measured by indicators.
As my responsibilities have become more administrative, I have been intentional about not losing touch with the people at the centre of our work. I still make time to visit communities and health facilities because the conversations I have there often teach me far more than any report could. They reveal the practical realities, frustrations and opportunities that data alone cannot fully explain.
For leaders navigating today’s funding environment, my advice is simple: never become so focused on designing solutions that you lose sight of the people those solutions are meant to serve. Policy creates direction. Markets enable scale. But it is the client journey that ultimately determines whether impact is real, trusted and sustained.
Q7. If you could leave fellow CEOs, government leaders and development partners with one lesson from this period, what would you want them to do differently as they think about Africa’s next decade of development?
If there is one lesson I hope fellow CEOs, government leaders and development partners take from the past year, it is that moments of disruption are also moments of choice. They force us to decide whether we will spend our energy preserving what exists or building what the future requires.
For CEOs, that means resisting the instinct to retreat. Continue investing in your people, your capabilities and your ability to solve the problems that will matter tomorrow, even when today’s environment is uncertain.
For governments, it means leading with greater confidence. Set the agenda, strengthen your institutions and invite partners to support nationally defined priorities rather than substitute for them.
For development partners, it means asking a different question. Instead of measuring success only by the programmes delivered, ask whether your investments have left countries better able to solve the next challenge on their own.
If each of us embraces that responsibility, I believe the next decade of development in Africa will be defined less by how much funding we mobilise and more by the strength of the institutions, partnerships and local leadership we leave behind.
Q8.Finally, in one line: what has changed, and what must never change?
‘The conditions under which we work have changed. What has not changed is our appetite for lasting change and our commitment to improving lives. At SCIDaR, we are more energised than ever to work alongside the government and our partners to build the right solutions for Africa’s future. ‘