This is an excerpt from an article which originally appeared on the World Economic Forum website, read the article here. The article is part of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting.
The article was written by Sara Pantuliano – Chief Executive at ODI Global, and Bright Simons – President at mPedigree, and Lord Mark Malloch-Brown – Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics (LSE). Lord Malloch-Brown is also a member of BRAC's Global Board.
None dispute that we stand at a precipice in the history of human cooperation. The post-war, post-colonial architecture of international aid is not merely cracking; in many places, it has already collapsed.
The signs are everywhere. Fiscal pressures in the Global North are leading to sharp, reactive retrenchments. In the Global South, the “projectised” model of aid – which fragments support into short-term, donor-driven interventions rather than investing in people, institutions and systems – is increasingly viewed as an artifact of a bygone era. It has been dismissed as transactional, sluggish and out of touch with the dignity of national ownership. We are witnessing a crisis of legitimacy matched only by a crisis of solvency. The “benevolent donor” model is running out of money just as it runs out of moral capital.
Yet, this breakdown is also a breaking-open. It is a rare, fluid moment where the rules of the game can be rewritten. The question facing the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council (GFC) on Reimagining Aid is not how to patch the holes in the old, leaking ship, but how to navigate entirely new waters. Can we assemble a new set of principles and concepts for new, reimagined forms of international cooperation? Can we define a new compass to help guide us?
Read the full article on the World Economic Forum's website, here.
