Aid, Development and Progress 2026

9 September
A New Engine of Development
The era of easy growth is over, but rich and poor countries can still join forces.
By Michael Beckley, associate professor of political science, Tufts University.
(Foreign Policy) … Now, the era of easy growth has ended, and the old rules of development no longer hold. Rich countries are closing markets. China is buying less and exporting more. Robots and artificial intelligence are replacing workers. Easy credit has become crushing debt, and foreign aid is being slashed. Consequently, poor countries are no longer catching up to rich ones. The resulting distress is weakening governments and fueling violence. Thirteen poor-country democracies have collapsed into autocracy, reducing their ranks by a quarter. Battle deaths have more than doubled, with nearly one-third of Africa’s 54 countries embroiled in war, and global child deaths before age 5 were projected to rise in 2025 for the first time in decades.
Stemming this slide will require poor countries to find a different path of development than the one they could rely on in the past. They will need to build outward from their strongest footholds—a working mine, factory cluster, seaport, or city—rather than pouring scarce capital into grand projects and hoping an economy forms around them. Rich countries must help, not from charity alone but from self-interest. The poorest countries will add more than a billion people over the next two decades and account for virtually all global population growth. Without jobs, those youth bulges will fuel conflict, migration, and disorder. But the same demographic imbalance could anchor a new bargain: Aging rich societies have capital but too few workers; poor countries have workers but too little capital. Linking them through intermediate production, digital services, skills partnerships, and legal migration could create a new engine of development—less powerful than the old one but potentially more durable. …

16-18 August
The world is paying the price for American foreign aid cuts (video)
(GZERO World) Americans may be divided over the United States’ role in the world, but a surprising majority still believe the US has a responsibility to help people facing war, famine, disease, and displacement. The problem, David Miliband tells Ian Bremmer on GZERO World, is that many Americans dramatically overestimate how much the government actually spends on foreign aid and underestimate what that aid accomplishes. Humanitarian assistance isn’t just charity: it can be a remarkably cost-effective way to prevent global crises from spiraling out of control.
How America’s retreat from foreign aid is changing the world (video)
It’s been over a year since USAID shut down, leaving a massive gap in the global humanitarian aid system and leaving the world’s extreme poor without desperately needed relief. On GZERO World, International Rescue Committee President & CEO David Miliband joins Ian Bremmer to talk about the ripple effects of such a drastic drop in foreign aid and what it means for the world’s most vulnerable societies.
Overall, global humanitarian funding has dropped by over a third since its 2022 peak. The aid system has always been strained, but now we’re seeing the effects of such a significant pullback during two major crises. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, funding cuts have weakened efforts to contain a deadly Ebola virus outbreak. The war in Iran has sent food and fuel costs soaring, making sending aid to conflict zones like Sudan and Somalia even more difficult. Can the aid system recover from America’s retreat and is anyone stepping up to fill the vacuum?
“America was the anchor of the global system and it’s no longer the anchor of the global system,” Miliband says, “There’s now a dawning recognition if you take away all but the most quote lifesaving aid, you take massive risks.

21 May
Stopping Ebola Requires Multilateralism. America’s Retreat Is Making That Harder
We are now seeing the consequences of U.S. cuts to global health programs
Mark Leon Goldberg
(Global Dispatches) A whole lot of multilateralism goes into stopping an Ebola outbreak. Vaccines are developed and deployed by Gavi—the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations. Disease surveillance is often conducted by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, which has developed sophisticated networks for tracking diseases of all sorts. The World Health Organization coordinates it all, including between national health authorities and international experts and aid workers who are trained in taking the kind of action required to contain an outbreak before it spreads internationally.

20 May 2026
The mental health impact of a world at war
Global humanitarian needs are rising sharplyy – right as the systems designed to respond to them are facing the deepest funding cuts in years.
(GZERO media) More than 120 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide in 2025, and the United Nations estimates that number will climb to 136 million by the end of this year as conflicts in Gaza, Sudan, and Ukraine continue, and the war in Iran adds fresh uncertainty to an already unstable region.
In Lebanon alone, more than a million people, or nearly 20% of the population, have fled their homes since March when the current round of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah began.
As needs grow, resources shrink
But as the scale of the crisis grows, humanitarian funding is moving in the opposite direction. The OECD reported a sharp decline internationally in 2025, as the world’s top five donors – Germany, the US, UK, Japan, and France – all slashed their contributions for the first time on record. US humanitarian contributions to the UN alone reportedly fell from roughly $14.1 billion in 2024 to about $3.4 billion in 2025, following sweeping changes to USAID and other foreign assistance programs as part of the Trump administration’s reframing of foreign policy priorities.
The unseen wounds that often go untreated
While the most acute needs are food, shelter, security, and physical healthcare, mental health is a critical and often-overlooked dimension of the crisis.
The World Health Organization reports that one in five people living in conflict settings also experiences a mental health condition. And yet only 2% of humanitarian aid funding globally is directed toward mental health and psychosocial support.
Helping the helpers
The mental health needs aren’t only found among displaced and vulnerable populations. The aid workers who help them are themselves subjected to severe psychological impact and daily stress. Data collected from roughly 10,000 frontline responders found that about half experienced post-traumatic stress symptoms, while nearly one third reported burnout symptoms.

Türkiye’s UN envoy urges consistent humanitarian law application across global crises
Ankara’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ahmet Yildiz warns that selective approaches to international law undermines credibility of the legal system.
Turning to the Middle East, Yildiz said humanitarian conditions in Gaza “remain dire” despite the ceasefire and called for progress toward a two-state solution.
On Lebanon, he stressed “the importance of preserving Lebanon’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and stability,” describing the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire as “an important step that should be built upon.”
Regarding Syria, Yildiz said the Syrian people “now have a historic opportunity to build a future based on safety, dignity, and equal citizenship,” while welcoming accountability efforts for crimes committed under the former regime.
Addressing Africa, he said Sudan’s humanitarian crisis “remains catastrophic and requires urgent international attention,” while reaffirming support for a Libyan-led political dialogue.