“If capital doesn’t go to the poor,
the poor will go to the capital.”
— Ancient folk wisdom

These are stormy times for development aid. The United States has dismantled its development agency USAID (United States Agency for International Development), the United Kingdom is making heavy cuts to its aid budget, and there is also significant austerity in the development aid sectors of France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. The new governing coalition in Berlin intends to drastically cut development budgets too.

Disastrous Consequences

In the Global North, these cutbacks are presented as unavoidable side effects of budgetary discipline and rearmament. But in the Global South, the consequences are real and catastrophic.

Many African countries heavily rely on foreign aid, with countries like Sierra Leone and Malawi, for example, deriving more than 15 percent of their GDP from development funds.

USAID is one of the world’s leading providers of food aid, healthcare, and emergency assistance in times of disasters and conflicts. If this support disappears, millions of people in crisis situations such as Gaza, Ukraine, or Sub-Saharan Africa will lose access to life-saving aid.

In terms of global public health as well, the disappearance of USAID will have dramatic consequences. The organization plays a key role in combating infectious diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis, in vaccination campaigns, and in pandemic prevention. Without this support, vulnerable regions will face more disease outbreaks and rising child mortality rates.

Due to the discontinuation of USAID, hospitals in Kenya and Congo had to close their doors and healthcare workers became unemployed. HIV patients are no longer receiving medication, while famine and war threaten to escalate in Sudan and Congo without international support.

Additionally, USAID provides economic stimuli through agricultural development, microcredits, and infrastructure projects. This support strengthens the stability of local communities and reduces migration pressure. Ending these programs will likely slow economic growth in many countries, possibly resulting in more poverty, instability, and migration.

This abrupt elimination of U.S. development aid comes on top of the steady reduction in development funds from other Northern countries. In the worst-case scenario, global Official Development Assistance (ODA) will drop by $74 billion in 2025—almost a third of the total.

Speaking of figures: to alleviate the most urgent needs in the poorest countries, about $57 billion is needed annually. Wealthy countries finance barely a third of that. Collectively, they spend nearly seventy times as much on armaments.

And the above is only about emergency aid. For sustainable development, much more is needed. In 2015, the United Nations established 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to guarantee a better and more sustainable future for everyone by 2030. To achieve these, more than $5 trillion is needed annually. That’s 25 times more than what is currently spent each year on development aid.

With the current phasing out of development funds, none of that will materialize, of course.

Problematic 

And it’s not just a matter of quantity—the quality of development aid is also an issue. For decades, ODA has faced criticism, both from academic circles and from people with practical field experience.

To say the least development aid has failed to close the gap between North and South. But closing that gap wasn’t really the intention either. After World War II, development aid was primarily deployed as a tool to serve the geopolitical and commercial interests of donor countries.

Dean Acheson, U.S. Secretary of State, was especially clear about this in 1951:

“Economic and technical assistance must be sufficient to support the military programs and to deal with some of the fundamental problems of weakness where weapons alone are no defence”.

In 1960, Eugene Black, then-president of the World Bank, wrote:

“Economic aid should be the principle means by which the West maintains its political and economic dynamic in the underdeveloped world.”

The current president of the World Bank puts it this way:

“Our ultimate goal is to help countries build dynamic private sectors”.

In other words, poverty reduction and sustainable development are subordinate to reinforcing the influence and interests of donor countries, or are meant to benefit domestic or foreign capital groups. Aid was and still is used as a diplomatic instrument, for example to reward allies or to exert influence over the policies of recipient countries.

USAID often operated as an extension of U.S. foreign policy: media outlets and NGOs that received support from USAID or its sister organizations (such as the National Endowment for Democracy) were frequently found to be involved in regime change operations or the undermining of progressive governments.

“From Cuba to Bolivia and from Nicaragua to Venezuela, USAID has been involved in an endless series of programs aimed at building opposition, media campaigns, leadership training, and support for separatist movements”, Maurice Lemoine rightly notes.

Development aid often comes ‘with strings attached’, meaning that recipient countries are obliged to purchase goods or services from the donor country. Moreover, a large portion of the aid flows back to donor countries through orders for their own companies and experts.

A significant part of development aid is also not directly spent on basic provisions such as healthcare, education, and clean drinking water, as the figures above have already shown. Many aid programs are set up top-down, without sufficient input from local communities. This lack of ownership leads to projects that are poorly aligned with the realities on the ground and therefore are not very sustainable.

Besides the problems of inefficiency, corruption, and mismanagement, there is also the issue of short-term thinking. Many projects are temporary and offer no structural solution. Institutional development and long-term visions are often lacking.

Throwing the Baby Out with the Bathwater

In other words, development aid has a very problematic history. But anyone who concludes from this that we should abandon it altogether is making a tragic mistake. Because despite all its shortcomings, well-designed aid is still one of the most powerful tools to save lives, combat inequality, and make the world a safer place.

Today, aid is more necessary and urgent than ever. The climate crisis is advancing rapidly, and the Global South is feeling its effects first and most severely. The African continent is close by. Hundreds of millions of young people are getting ready to shape their future. The question is whether they will be able—or willing—to do so locally.

Without investments, without a fair seat at the table, and without global solidarity, an explosion of poverty, conflict, and migration looms. Drones, barbed wire, or extra soldiers will not stop that. The world is too complex and interconnected to consider poverty and instability elsewhere as something that is “not our problem”.

Cutting aid, therefore, is not an act of wise policy or courage, but rather of cowardice and short-sightedness. If politicians truly want to show leadership, they must tell their citizens the truth: that we live in a globalized and interconnected world. That giving up on development aid is not a saving, but a cost that will be repaid in instability and insecurity.

Instead of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, we must reinvent development aid: it must be fairer, more effective, more transparent, and more structural. We must do this not only out of charity or solidarity, but also out of ‘enlightened self-interest’.

A world where solidarity gives way to militarization and building walls is not a safer world. It is a world adrift, and in the end, we all lose. 

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Marc Vandepitte is a member of the Network of Intellectuals and Artists in Defense of Humanity and was an observer during the presidential elections in Venezuela. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Sources

New York Times: ‘We’re Just Keeping Everybody Alive’: The Damage Done by the U.S.A.I.D. Freeze

What USAID does, its impact and what Trump’s cuts mean– The country that kicked out USAID

Pullback from USAID raises big questions for global health, security

Aid’s grim counter-revolution will prove self-defeating

USAID shutdown: What does it mean for the world?

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