World at Crossroads: From Scenarios to Action
These short summaries and discussions address highly complex global, regional, and translocal developments occurring up to March 2025, involving numerous actors, perspectives, and nuances. They do not offer comprehensive accounts or detailed analyses, and inevitably may overlook certain events, developments, or viewpoints. Instead, their purpose is to help stakeholders critically engage with the four RESPACE scenarios, stimulating reflection, strategic foresight, and deeper exploration of transformative possibilities for collaboration. Each RESPACE scenario outlines distinct, plausible future pathways but is explicitly not predictive. Users are encouraged to continuously adapt and update these Dialogue Inputs to reflect evolving contexts and emerging understandings.
USAID Shutdown — What is the Future of the Aid Industry?
March 2025
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Summary & Context
In early 2025, the returning Trump administration moved swiftly to gut the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). More than 80% of USAID programmes were terminated within weeks, with thousands of aid contracts cancelled as part of an America First review. This abrupt cutoff halted humanitarian operations worldwide, jeopardising life-saving food and medical aid in many conflict zones. The collapse of USAID is part of a broader crisis in the aid industry: many traditional donors have been retrenching or redirecting funds. Increasingly, aid budgets are tied to domestic donor interests (such as hosting refugees or trade gains) rather than global need. This pullback in international aid raises alarms in humanitarian and peacebuilding circles, which see growing needs – conflicts, climate disasters, inequality – but shrinking support.
Scenario Parallels/Contrasts
The USAID shutdown starkly aligns with the Walls scenario, where nationalist and isolationist agendas prevail. In Walls futures, governments prioritise military and border security over diplomacy or aid, and Western states withhold contributions to multilateral systems as ineffective and wasteful. The Trump administration view that foreign aid does not serve US interests – and its willingness to slash it – exemplifies this mindset. It contrasts with the Maze scenario, which imagines states reinvesting in multilateral collaboration and reforming global institutions (Maze pushes to strengthen, not dismantle, aid agencies). The aid cut also undercuts elements of the Bridges scenario: Bridges assumes empowered grassroots and civil society networks, which might need to fill the void as government aid recedes. At the same time, this crisis could force some Bridges dynamics, as local actors mobilise to compensate for absent donors. Under a regionalist Towers lens (this scenario anticipates a similarly swift decline in aid), the US retreat might spur regional powers or coalitions to step up their own aid mechanisms; for example, African or Asian regional development funds. If no alternative emerges, however, this also risks leaving a vacuum. Overall, the USAID shutdown embodies a shift toward insularity (Walls), with grave implications for global peace efforts that depend on international aid solidarity.
Discussion Questions
- For Civil Society: How can NGOs and local peacebuilders adapt to a world of dwindling foreign aid? What strategies can help them sustain critical programmes when traditional donor support evaporates? For example, diversifying funding sources, forming South–South cooperation networks or mobilising community resources.
- For Donors and Policymakers: For officials in other donor countries (or multilateral agencies): What steps should be taken to mitigate the fallout of the USAID withdrawal? Should they increase their contributions to fill gaps or push for new funding models (such as pooled funds, philanthropy, or private-sector partnerships) to support peace and development? For policymakers: How can policy reforms ensure aid is more resilient to political swings in any one country?
- For the Private Sector: Can businesses and philanthropists help bridge the funding gap? For instance, would large corporations invest in humanitarian relief or conflict prevention as part of their corporate social responsibility, especially in regions where they operate? What incentives or collaborations could engage the tech, finance or mining sectors in supporting peace initiatives that were previously donor funded?
- For Local Communities: In aid-dependent regions, how are local communities coping with cuts in assistance? Could this crisis encourage more community-led initiatives and self-reliance? Or will it exacerbate suffering and instability before such bottom–up efforts can scale up? What traditional or informal support systems (local charities, diaspora remittances, mutual aid groups) can communities strengthen to reduce reliance on diminishing or fickle international aid?
- For Activists and Advocates: Does the dismantling of USAID signal a need to re-imagine the aid system altogether? How can activists use this moment to argue for decolonising aid and empowering local actors? Conversely, how can they pressure donor governments to recognise that global aid and peacebuilding ultimately serve long-term stability that benefits everyone? What narratives might convince sceptical voters that international solidarity is still in their national interest and, comparatively, costs rather little (in 2024, USAID accounted for 0.3% of all federal spending, which represents about 0.07% of the GDP)?