Having grown up in a medic home, with a mother who works on HIV/AIDs programs, means I have an acute awareness of how global health programs such as the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, benefit more than 1.4 million people in my home country of Kenya and beyond.

Just like any concerned party, when I learned that this critical funding would be halted, I reached out to my mother to understand what this decision could mean for her work and the ripple effects it would have on so many lives in the country.

While her team, and the partners she has worked with for years, grapple with the uncertainty of knowing if they can provide lifesaving drugs to their patients, she, like many Africans who do not mince their words, also pointed out that: “It is high time African leaders find a way to survive without depending on aid. We keep saying we have all these resources that the West needs, yet they find ways to hurt us.”

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