Critical Perspectives on the Future of Aid
Annalisa Prizzon – LinkedIn post, October 2025
Summary
Annalisa Prizzon, Principal Research Fellow at ODI, introduces a new joint special issue of Development Policy Review and Disasters examining how shrinking donor commitments and a shift toward national and commercial interests are reshaping the global aid system. The collection gathers prominent scholars to explore what a new paradigm for development cooperation and humanitarian policy might look like. Prizzon asks whether the traditional model of aid and humanitarian assistance still holds relevance as Western donors retreat, and she highlights the issue’s diverse contributions addressing South–South cooperation, private finance, and alternative frameworks for global solidarity.
Quotes
- “As leading donors draw back from their aid commitments, align their policy more explicitly with national and commercial interests and radically cut their funding, should we expect a new paradigm for development cooperation...?”
- “The articles in this issue explore what the changing aid landscape might mean for recipient countries in the Global South, Western donors themselves, and the development and humanitarian community.”
- “Matthew Foley wrote a compelling introduction to the special issue, brilliantly summarising the contributions… however, I would encourage you to read all the articles – they are free to read for the next three months.”
Future of Development and Humanitarian Aid – Introduction
Matthew Foley – ODI / Disasters & Development Policy Review, 2026
Summary
In his introduction to a joint special issue of Disasters and Development Policy Review, Matthew Foley examines the global shift away from traditional development assistance and the implications for humanitarian action. He describes a world in which Western donors are retreating from their aid commitments, aligning funding with national and commercial interests, and undermining the moral and political foundations of international cooperation. Contributors to the volume analyse how these shifts reflect deeper crises of empathy, solidarity, and leadership — and explore how new paradigms, including South–South cooperation, digital transformation, and global public investment, could redefine the future of aid. Foley concludes that the current rupture, though severe, also offers a rare opportunity to rebuild humanitarianism on the basis of fairness, solidarity, and moral imagination rather than charity or control.
Quotes
- “This joint special issue … looks critically at the turn away from official development assistance by the major Western donors, and the challenges – as well as the potential opportunities – these shifts present.”
- “Empathy – understood as the recognition of shared vulnerability and interdependence – is no longer a default expectation but a discretionary political choice.”
- “The aid system is not only morally compromised but structurally incoherent, its claims of care entangled with control and extraction.”
- “Technocratic solutions that fail to account for or sideline local political realities … will, as they always have, fail to generate the change needed.”
- “Seizing this opportunity and rebuilding the legitimacy and moral value of aid requires more than reforming aid delivery. It demands a structural realignment … moving beyond charity to embrace fairness.”
- “The words we choose – empathy, dignity, humanity – must regain substance. Their disappearance is not semantic. It is complicity.”
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