Is American Support Really Leaving Zimbabwe?

I am sitting in a meeting planning for the close-out of US Government-supported programmes in Zimbabwe.

Even writing that sentence feels strange.

For more than two decades, American funding has been woven into Zimbabwe's development and health response. HIV. TB. Malaria. Maternal and child health. Food security. Orphans and vulnerable children. Adolescents. Reproductive health. Humanitarian assistance. Education.

An entire generation of development workers has grown up inside this ecosystem.

And now, we are sitting in meetings discussing how to close parts of it down.

I am not a political analyst.

I cannot give you the sophisticated geopolitical analysis of how we arrived here. I cannot tell you who should have conceded what, or give you a technical model predicting exactly how many lives will be affected.

But I am a witness.

I have sat in the meetings.

I have watched programmes move from PowerPoint presentations into communities.

I have seen healthcare workers trained, medicines delivered, systems strengthened and people who would otherwise have fallen through the cracks receive care.

I have seen communities grateful for programmes most Americans will probably never know their taxes helped fund.

I have seen lives saved.

And so I cannot quite believe that this is where we are.

Behind the Acronyms Are People

Development work has a language of its own.

We say sustainability.

We say domestic resource mobilisation.

We say transition.

We say country ownership.

We say localisation.

Important words. Necessary words.

But sometimes they roll off our tongues far more easily than the actions required to make them real.

Because somewhere beneath every budget line is a person.

There is a little girl living with HIV who needs her lifesaving treatment.

There is a miner who developed TB after years of working underground and needs diagnosis, treatment and follow-up.

There is a pregnant woman whose nearest health facility has benefited from years of investment in maternal health.

There is an adolescent who needs somewhere safe to ask questions about their health.

There is a family whose survival through a drought depends on humanitarian assistance.

And eventually somebody has to explain what "transition" means to them.

That is the part that keeps bothering me.

And Then There Are the People Who Did the Work

There is another group we do not talk about enough.

The workforce.

Thousands of Zimbabweans have given some of the best years of their professional lives to development work.

Doctors who could have gone into private practice.

Nurses.

Public health specialists.

Researchers.

Monitoring and evaluation experts.

Finance teams.

Drivers.

Counsellors.

Community health workers.

Programme managers.

Data scientists.

Pharmacists.

People who became extraordinarily good at solving difficult problems with limited resources.

Many chose service when their skills could have earned them considerably more elsewhere.

What happens to all that human capital?

Some will change careers.

Some will build businesses.

Some will move into private practice.

Some will leave Zimbabwe.

And perhaps, quietly, we will lose some of our brightest minds precisely when we need them most.

How Did We Get Here?

The global development world is changing.

That much is undeniable.

The era in which wealthy countries indefinitely financed large portions of health and development systems in poorer countries was probably always going to change.

Perhaps it needed to.

Zimbabwe must ultimately build systems capable of caring for Zimbabweans.

We need greater domestic financing. Stronger institutions. Better accountability. More local philanthropy. A private sector that sees investment in health as nation-building. Governments willing to put meaningful resources behind the word sustainability.

Perhaps this moment will force us to build differently.

But transitions matter.

You cannot remove a pillar from a house and simply announce that the house must now become sustainable.

Someone has to hold up the roof.

And Right Now, I Am Grieving

Maybe that is what this is.

Grief.

Grief for programmes ending.

Grief for colleagues whose futures suddenly feel uncertain.

Grief for communities who may never understand the diplomatic decisions being made thousands of kilometres away from them.

Grief because somewhere between governments, policies, negotiations and disagreements are ordinary Zimbabweans who simply need healthcare.

And I keep wondering:

Will Zimbabwe rise to meet the gap that is being left behind?

I desperately hope so.

I hope this becomes the moment we finally take domestic financing seriously.

I hope our private sector steps forward.

I hope Zimbabwean philanthropy grows.

I hope our diaspora sees nation-building differently.

I hope the extraordinary professionals trained through decades of development investment take everything they have learned and build something new here.

But I also hope it is not too late for another conversation.

So I Am Asking You to Pray

I don't know what will happen next.

But I believe in prayer.

So if you are reading this, please pray for Zimbabwe.

Pray for wisdom for those sitting around negotiating tables.

Pray that pride, politics and power do not become more important than people.

Pray that hearts soften.

Pray that another conversation becomes possible.

Pray for the people currently closing programmes they have spent years building.

Pray for the healthcare workers wondering what comes next.

Pray for the patients who do not know that somewhere, in some boardroom, decisions are being made that may eventually reach the clinic where they collect their medicine.

And pray for our country.

Because perhaps this is also a moment of reckoning for us.

For decades, others have helped carry part of the load.

If they leave, what will we build in their place?

Maybe something will still change.

I pray that it does.

Because after witnessing what more than two decades of American health and development assistance has meant on the ground, I shudder to think about what happens if it simply disappears.

And somewhere beneath all the politics, agreements, acronyms and dollar figures is a much simpler question:

Who will take care of the people?

May God give us an answer.