Does Aid Really Aid Democratization? — Taiwo Adeagbo explores

*Nigeria’s Experience Shows the Limits

More than three decades after the end of the Cold War, billions of dollars have been poured into promoting democracy across Africa. From Nigeria to Ghana, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, Western nations led by the United States have funded programmes aimed at strengthening elections, political parties, and governance institutions. Yet, a lingering question remains: Has all this aid truly deepened democracy?

In Nigeria, the results are mixed. Since the country’s return to civilian rule in 1999, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and its implementing partners — including the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the International Republican Institute (IRI), and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) have invested heavily in electoral reforms, party training, and civic education.

Despite these decades of engagement, Nigeria’s democracy remains fragile. Elections are still marked by irregularities, vote-buying, and institutional weaknesses. The political landscape continues to revolve around personalities rather than strong, ideology-driven parties.

Observers say this paradox reflects a deeper flaw in the structure of international democracy assistance. As political scholar Thomas Carothers once observed, much of Western donor support has produced “formal elections without institutional depth.”

Ghana is often cited as a success story where donor coordination helped professionalize the Electoral Commission and strengthen party competition. But in Liberia and Sierra Leone, despite significant donor funding, parties remain weak and personality-driven. Analysts say this suggests that external assistance alone cannot create the political incentives needed for real institutional growth.

Part of the challenge lies in what some experts call the “technical temptation.” Agencies such as USAID tend to deliver short-term projects — training poll workers, organizing civic education workshops, or funding election technology. These efforts produce quick, visible outcomes but often fail to translate into lasting political change.

Nigeria’s 2019 and 2023 elections underline this dilemma. Donor-backed innovations — such as biometric voter registration and parallel vote tabulation did improve transparency to some extent. Yet, they left untouched the entrenched issues of elite domination, weak accountability, and intra-party godfatherism.

Still, outrightly dismissing democracy assistance would be premature. In fragile post-conflict states like Liberia and Sierra Leone, donor aid helped establish electoral institutions and stabilize transitions at critical moments. In such contexts, aid has filled gaps in local capacity and helped create a foundation for political order.

Experts argue that the effectiveness of democracy aid depends on local ownership and political will. Foreign assistance can support democratic consolidation only when donor efforts align with domestic reform coalitions.

For Nigeria and much of Africa, analysts say, the next step must involve moving beyond technical fixes to sustained political engagement supporting think tanks, reform-minded civic groups, and intra-party democracy that strengthens accountability from within.

According to Taiwo Adeagbo, a Ph.D. researcher at Temple University in the United States, aid can indeed aid democratization, but only when it is “patient, politically informed, and locally owned.”

“Democracy cannot be outsourced,” he notes. “It must be built by citizens and leaders who see it as more than a donor project. The role of external actors is to support that journey, not script it.”