A Promise Too Big to Keep

For decades, USAID has positioned itself as the benevolent force behind Ethiopia’s development, funding billion-dollar projects designed to uplift the country’s most vulnerable populations. The agency has long been the go-to source for ambitious, multi-year initiatives aimed at solving unemployment, poverty, and health crises. The pitch is always the same: with just the right amount of American dollars, the problems of a developing nation can be fixed.

Among these grandiose projects, Kefeta—Amharic for “to elevate”—stood out as a particularly ambitious promise. With a budget of $60 million and a goal to transform the lives of 2 million Ethiopian youth over five years, Kefeta was supposed to be a game changer. It was going to train young people, find them jobs, create financial inclusion, and build youth-friendly health centers.

But now, just three years into the program, the numbers tell a different story—one of underperformance, poor planning, and an increasingly frustrated youth population left with nothing but empty promises.

And with Donald Trump’s decision to dismantle USAID entirely, Kefeta’s fragile structure is now collapsing. But the bitter truth is this: Kefeta was failing long before Trump pulled the plug.

A Catalogue of Broken Promises

Kefeta was supposed to be the lifeline for Ethiopia’s youth, a country where unemployment rates hover above 25% in urban areas and millions of young people struggle to find meaningful work. It was meant to offer them advocacy training, financial services, and job creation programs that would give them a shot at a better future.

Instead, two years in, the results are embarrassingly low.

Goal	Target (5-Year Goal)	Actual Progress (Year 2, June 2022)	Completion Rate	Assessment
Workforce Development Training	236,000 youth	511 trained in work readiness, 738 in life skills, 283 in entrepreneurship	0.7%	Completely off track. At this rate, Kefeta would need 280+ years to meet its training goal.
Full-Time Job Creation	50,000 jobs	481 jobs and internships created	0.9%	Severely underperforming. Job creation is practically nonexistent compared to expectations.
SACCOs for Youth Financial Inclusion	150,000 youth	SACCOs launched in 3 cities, no numbers on total beneficiaries	Unclear progress	Not transparent. No data on whether young people are actually accessing financial services.
Youth Advocacy Training	16,000 youth	703 trained	4.4%	Way behind schedule. Even if the pace doubles, Kefeta will still fail to meet its target.
Health Service Provider Training	1,100 providers	130 trained	11.8%	Slightly better performance, but still behind schedule.
Youth-Friendly Hubs	61 centers	No clear reporting on progress	Uncertain	Lack of transparency. Either no progress has been made, or the numbers are being withheld.

The project isn’t just failing—it’s barely even functioning. At this rate, Kefeta won’t meet its goals even if it were extended another 20 years.

What went wrong?

USAID’s Playbook: Throw Money, Call It Progress

USAID’s strategy in Ethiopia, and many other parts of the world, has always been volume over depth. The agency funds flashy projects, doles out big numbers, launches massive PR campaigns, and then moves on before anyone can fully assess the impact.

Projects like Kefeta look great on paper. They promise millions of dollars, millions of beneficiaries, and grand transformation stories. But once the press releases are out and the launch events are over, reality sets in:

• There are no sustainable employment opportunities.
• Training programs don’t lead to actual jobs.
• The bureaucracy eats up most of the budget before it even reaches the intended recipients.

For Kefeta, the math was flawed from the start. The idea that $60 million could fundamentally change the lives of 2 million youth over five years was always an illusion. That’s $30 per youth per year—barely enough to buy them a meal, let alone offer meaningful job training or financial services.

The Consequences of False Hope

If Kefeta had simply failed quietly, it might have been just another forgotten development project, buried in the archives of USAID’s long history of underwhelming interventions. But its real damage is in the hope it instilled—hope that is now unraveling into disappointment, frustration, and disillusionment among Ethiopian youth.

For thousands of young people who enrolled in advocacy training, business courses, and financial programs, the assumption was that these efforts would lead somewhere. That they would graduate into a network of support, job placement, and resources that would actually help them break free from poverty.

Instead, they are left with meaningless certificates, unpaid internships, and a market that has no space for them.

What happens when you repeatedly raise expectations and fail to deliver? You don’t just waste money—you create a generation of young people who no longer believe in the system.

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The Trump Factor: An Easy Scapegoat for a Bigger Failure

Now, as Trump dismantles USAID, some will point to this decision as the reason why projects like Kefeta are failing.

That would be convenient. But the truth is, Kefeta was failing long before Trump decided to shut the lights off at USAID.

If anything, the program’s collapse should serve as a wake-up call to Ethiopia and other aid-dependent nations:

• Stop relying on foreign aid to fix systemic issues.
• Demand better accountability from NGOs and government-run projects.
• Focus on local solutions instead of outsourcing development to an American agency that has no long-term stake in Ethiopia’s success.

What Ethiopia Can Learn from the Death of Kefeta

Now that the funding is drying up, Ethiopia must ask itself: What comes next?

Instead of waiting for the next USAID-funded initiative, Ethiopia needs to:

1. Prioritize sustainable job creation over training programs.
   • If training doesn’t lead to actual employment, it’s pointless.
2. Build financial inclusion through Ethiopian-owned initiatives.
   • SACCOs shouldn’t need foreign aid to exist—they should be locally driven.
3. Demand greater transparency from development partners.
   • If a program isn’t meeting its targets, call it out—before it wastes millions.
4. Encourage private sector involvement.
   • Government and NGOs alone can’t fix the economy—local businesses need to be engaged.

The End of USAID and the Beginning of Accountability

USAID’s departure will be painful. But maybe, in its absence, Ethiopia will finally be forced to take a hard look at what works, what doesn’t, and how to build real solutions instead of illusions.

For years, projects like Kefeta have been held up as symbols of progress while failing behind the scenes. Perhaps it’s time to stop waiting for salvation from Washington and start designing a future that isn’t dependent on the empty promises of foreign aid.

Because if Kefeta teaches us anything, it’s that hope without results is just another form of betrayal.