Anit-abortion activists hold signs outside the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on June 24, 2022.(Photo by STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)
A recent report has revealed that “anti-rights” and “anti-gender” groups based in the US increased their total annual spending on churches in Africa to $16 482 776 between 2019 and 2022.
The report, published by the Institute for Journalism and Social Change, analysed the US 990 forms that non-profit organisations have to submit to the US Internal Revenue Service to get a tax exemption. According to requirements, organisations must submit documents if they have total expenses or revenues outside the US of at least $10 000.
The report found that 17 US Christian rights organisations, known for opposing sexual and reproductive rights, together spent more than $16.5 million in Africa over the four years between 2019 and 2022.
Almost a third of this total, $5.2 million, was spent in 2022 alone — the year after President Joe Biden took office.
However, the financial filings do not reveal in which African countries the money has been spent.
According to the financial records of the anti-abortion group Heartbeat International, South Africa, Ghana, Uganda, Zambia and Tanzania were the beneficiaries of $66 775 worth of investments in 2022.
“It is likely just a fraction of the full financial investment that US conservatives opposing sexual and reproductive rights have made on the continent,” states the report.
The report attributes the increased spending in Africa to the fierce challenge to the landmark Roe vs Wade judgment in which the supreme court ruled that the constitution generally protected the right to abortion.
Based on the financial filings, the groups include several organisations involved in the controversial Project 2025 initiative — a 900-page policy wishlist for Donald Trump’s prospective administration.
Three of the 17 groups in this analysis are members of the Project 2025 advisory board. These include Alliance Defending Freedom, which focuses on court battles against sexual and reproductive rights.
Project 2025 publisher, The Heritage Foundation, is also on the list of spenders in Africa, although the amounts they’ve disclosed decreased from $5 918 spent in 2020 to zero in 2022.
In 2018, the Heritage Foundation said that, “One year after taking office, President Donald Trump and his administration have embraced nearly two-thirds of the policy recommendations from [the foundation’s] Mandate for Leadership.”
Another group associated with Project 2025 is The Fellowship Foundation, which “focuses on evangelising and organising with politicians”. It accounted for 45% of the spending during the period from 2019 to 2022, about $8 919 197.
In October 2023, US state representative Tim Walberg attended a prayer breakfast in Uganda where, as the keynote speaker, he urged the country to stand behind its Anti-Homosexuality Act. The Fellowship Foundation funded the trip.
After this return, the global equality movement All Out expressed concern regarding the foundation’s financial support for trips to Africa that endorse and promote discrimination against LGBTQIA+ people, some of whom are Christians.
The report further claims that there are US groups active in Africa that do not file 990 forms. This is the case of the Institute for Women’s Health, founded by Valerie Huber, a Project 2025 advisory board member.
Huber held several leadership roles in the Trump administration and played a prominent role in developing the Geneva Consensus Declaration aimed at securing “meaningful health and development gains for women”.
However, the report says that the Institute for Women’s Health “is not included in this briefing’s analysis and data tables because, while it is registered as a US 501c3 non-profit, it has disclosed no international spending in its annual filings — of which there were only two as of early October 2024”.
The report cautioned that “the dramatic increase in spending in Africa by these US groups demonstrates the need for more regular and ongoing monitoring to keep figures and anti-rights monitors up to date”.