Before “DOGE:” USAID and Nigeria’s Education Development Outcomes: A Review of Education Policies and Community Perspectives

Abstract

The recent dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)under the policy guidance of President Donald Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) controlled by the governance philosophy of Elon Musk has brought up acute questions. These primarily cover the weaknesses of architectures of internationaldevelopment and its effect on the education system of the global South. Such interference is of particular importance in the situation in Nigeria, whereinterventions backed by external sources have been at the center stage of influencing policy frameworks and action plans of Early Grade Reading (EGR). With more than 10 years of targeted and specific investments,which include big programmes like the Northern Education Initiative (NEI), NEI Plus, and LEARN, the foundational literacy results are still uneven showing underlying structural and institutional problems. The policy environment and implementation dynamics of EGR interventions in Bauchi and Sokoto States is interrogated using this scoping review. With particular reference to the involvement of community governance structures like School-Based Management Committees (SBMCs), the study utilizes policy documents, report on programmes and field-based survey information to explore how the “localization agenda”,which is an attempt to entrench development interventions in local institutional settings,has been put into practice. These findings imply that policy frameworks are well designed but there is still a lot of gaps in the implementation process. The paper claims that therecent crisis in international development assistance highlights the importance of reconsidering policy implementation strategies in EGR in Nigeria. It also raises the issue of stronger, locally-anchored mechanisms to support both educational outcomes outside the dependency of donors, as well as the wider discussion of politics of development aid and policy effectiveness in Africa.