William Brangham:
Ghana for years has been held up as a beacon of democracy and good government in West Africa.
But it also struggles with poverty and some very serious health issues, especially in the north. Ghana also sits in an area that is deeply troubled. It’s surrounded by Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, nations that all have a very serious Islamic insurgency going on there.
As Senator Rubio used to argue, if USAID can shore up a nation and make sure that people don’t die, that kids can go to school, those people might be resistant to Islamic insurgencies and anti-American messaging. And this is what he used to argue, that this was part of USAID’s soft power.
And so producer Molly Knight Raskin and I went to Ghana to try to give our viewers a little vignette of the kind of work that USAID used to do and what it might mean for people when it goes away.
Haruna Amina (ph) is in the early stages of labor. She traveled hours by motorbike to get to this small clinic in the town of Tamale in Northern Ghana. This clinic, along with hundreds like it, was supported by USAID. Even though the care here is rudimentary, it’s lifesaving.
Pregnant women in this region weren’t dying nearly as often. But now USAID’s withdrawal threatens that progress. Midwife Leticia Didera is already running short of critical medications.
