US development finance has underpinned much of the capital that has flowed into businesses across Africa in various guises in recent years. USAID has been underwriting key funds and Washington maintains significant shareholding positions across major multilateral development banks, like the World Bank and African Development Bank, which gives it substantial influence over their decision-making processes.

“There’s a reduction from a certain geography, but that is not universal for us,” said Tokunboh Ishmael, managing director of Alitheia Capital, which is raising a $200 million fund focused on the intersection of climate, digital transformation, and gender.

“The assets in the US are humongous, but the assets in the US are not just public finances, so you’ve got other sources of US capital that still care about these key areas of gender and climate,” Ishmael told Semafor on the sidelines of a private equity conference in Lagos. She added that investors in other parts of the world were doubling down on their commitment to gender investments and that the “tourists,” for whom gender was a passing fad, had “gone home.”

Elena Haba, a senior official at the 2X Global membership organization that seeks to unlock gender-focused capital, told Semafor the Trump administration’s dismantling of USAID had contributed to the drying up of capital streams that supported gender-based investments.