The dismantling of USAID & the paradoxes of global development

What is happening to USAID now is an unprecedented attack on global development and humanitarianism.

If we zoom out a little bit it is also an almost unparalleled moment to revisit some of the great paradoxes of giving aid, of two things being true at the same time and the many shades of grey in-between.
The bigger picture that is emerging, not just in the US, but across OECD donors, is that the global, post WWII development consensus is being dismantled and most of the legitimate criticism about the aid-industrial complex is replaced with vindictive, right-wing politics.
I am convinced that very little good will come from this “disruption” and that more people globally will be worse off in the aftermath than benefit from short-term notions of cutting off overpaid Western consultants from the taxpayers’ purse.
And yet, giving and receiving aid has always be a complicated endeavor and I am going to look at some of the paradoxes that are coming to light right now.

Paradox (Merriam-Webster)
1: one (such as a person, situation, or action) having seemingly contradictory qualities or phases
2a: a statement that is seemingly contradictory or opposed to common sense and yet is perhaps true
b: a self-contradictory statement that at first seems true
c: an argument that apparently derives self-contradictory conclusions by valid deduction from acceptable premises

1. Aid “from the American people” is much more than an imperial foreign policy tool

Nanjala Nyabola’s skeets sums it up quite poignantly:

This USAID situation reminds me of why I’ve always called BS on Dambisa Moyo’s argument about foreign aid. Is aid dependency a bad thing? Absolutely. But “aid” is a small word that covers an array of things and calling for the unilateral suspension of aid without parsing that through is dangerous.

— Nanjala (@nanjala.bsky.social) February 3, 2025 at 4:09 PM

One of the things that the current news about USAID have achieved is that a complex picture of American foreign aid is emerging, a picture that goes beyond simple “soft power” and “foreign policy influencing” narratives.
The global health sector already notices what the stop-work order means for the health and well-being of many, often very vulnerable people around the globe. The map from a New York Times article provides a window into the world of “American aid”

2. The aid-industrial complex needs a fundamental re-think
Looking at some of Wayan Vota’s posts on LinkedIn where he updates on the employment situation of many of USAID’s main aid recipients, it is easy to become a bit cynical. These are not exactly grass-roots NGOs “doing good”, but huge corporate behemoth that have done really, really well forging close relationships with USAID. These are also corporate entities that despite years of risk assessments, business plans, public-private partnerships and innovative models to capitalize on services shut down their entire Global Health team the moment the first payments from USAID are cancelled/stalled, like the case of Chemonics shows. This is not the localized, decolonized future of aid many in the sector have had in mind…

3. Expat aid workers and consultants may lose jobs-but many local jobs and livelihoods are affected as well
Following up from the second point is a notion that Themrise Khan and other commentators have made, namely that the death of expat aid worker-driven white saviorism cannot happen quickly enough. I disagree.

In the end, today’s aid chains have become far too complicated to keep simple dichotomies of overpaid Western/Northern aid workers and exploited local counterparts.

4. It’s not just Trump or the US-global development in the OECD is under pressure
Last week I joined a seminar on the new Swedish government aid strategy.
And one of the most shocking discoveries was, how quickly and profoundly keywords and approaches have changed from progressive “development” narratives to a narrow “aid should benefit Swedish politics and businesses”. Yes, aid has never been a pure and selfish gift, but we are still talking about Sweden after all…at the same time the UK is planning to cut conflict-related aid and Switzerland as well as the Netherlands have debates about the future of foreign aid and global engagement. And even though aid does not feature prominently in Germany’s election discourse, I think that the BMZ, the last remaining development ministry in Europe, will come under immense pressure after the elections to merge/be integrated with/into the Foreign Office.

5. Reforms are needed, but many governments target aid for short-sighted, populist, right-leaning, migration-related reasons
Perhaps a free-standing ministry for development cooperation is no longer necessary. Perhaps large implementing agencies, whether they are quasi-public (e.g. giz), quasi-private (those on Wayan’s list) or NGOs are no longer fit for purpose.
But I am convinced that none of these complicated policy and political debates drive the current “war on development”. Not only in Sweden is aid targeted for short-sighted populist wins, the good old “wasting taxpayers’ money” on disinformation drugs.
Musk’s attack on USAID seems to give him particular joy because he can “own the libs”. No good long-term policy will emerge from this spitefulness and any short-term savings will come back as long-term global debts on influence, diplomacy or humanitarianism.

6. Aid is still not the answer to humanitarian or climate crises or questions about local responsibilities
No post about aid is complete without a reminder that aid will always be a small piece in a complicated global puzzle to “solve” problems. And that puzzle has not become less puzzling in the 21st century.
Just to illustrate, a New York Times long-read on the gold trade in Sudan mentions 13 different countries-lots of centers and peripheries, some old, some new-ish.
And everywhere from DRC to Afghanistan, from Yemen to Myanmar an ever-more complicated web of local, regional and global players emerges beyond traditional “North-South” geopolitical geographies that often have one thing in common: Long-term destabilization with devastating impacts on many people for short-term gains of an unchecked or sheltered global elite that treaties, laws and politics can barely reach.

7. No matter how much information, communication and facts experts provide, aid continues to be an easy target for mis-/disinformation/“fake news”
Sometimes I almost miss the good/bad old days when the Daily Mail or similar media run their latest attack on “wasteful” foreign aid or the “Ethiopian Spice Girls”.
It seemed part of the “game”. But the complexities and paradoxes of aid have made it a perfect target for today’s misinformation campaigns on a different scale.

Aid has its problems-it is the proverbial “imperfect offering”. Aid was also never not politicized or linked to foreign policy. And aid sometimes gets things wrong. But I am almost 100 percent convinced that the current “war on aid” will not achieve anything in the longer term; no tax money will really be saved and no new structures will emerge that allow for more global solidarity, stronger partnerships or truly decolonial approaches; nobody will be better off-neither in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. or Nairobi nor in Khartoum, Sanaa, Goma or Gaza.