Since the establishment of the first modern development agencies in the mid-20th century, the very concept of global development has never been tested like it’s being tested now as global development is under threat. Even during recessions and upheavals, global development always followed a consistently forward trajectory, with an understood commitment to equity, dignity, and shared prosperity. Bolstered by landmark global agreements such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and later the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), there was both an aspirational consensus on what multilateral global cooperation could achieve, and development was seen as a critical investment for global stability.

Today, we find ourselves confronting a starkly different reality, a nightmare scenario long in the making but one whose arrival nevertheless feels as abrupt as it is unsettling. The optimism of earlier decades has been replaced by caution, doubt, and even open hostility towards global engagement and international cooperation, and the global development industry finds itself in retreat.

Global Development Under Threat: A Slow Turning Point

While there is nothing gradual about the United States’ withdrawal from the development industry, the slow-boil transformation beneath it has gone unnoticed by many for years. Rising discontent with globalization initially manifested as pushback against trade agreements and global economic integration, but development agencies became symbolic proxies for the broader “global elite,” seen as disconnected from the very communities they sought to help. William Easterly’s and Dambisa Moyo’s warnings went unheeded, while the development industry did little to justify itself to those who did not instinctively validate its value proposition.

The seeds of discontent were planted in the growing income inequalities within developed nations, which many citizens attributed to globalization and unchecked immigration policies. Politicians, often from the right, skillfully capitalized on these sentiments, amplifying fears and shifting blame towards international agencies and foreign aid programs, portraying them as diverting essential resources from domestic priorities (while the public consistently overestimated how much was being spent to aid foreign nations and how little was gained). The stage was set for the expanding circles of empathy to rapidly contract, an inward turn which has gleefully dismantled decades of consensus around global solidarity. Countries once seen as standard-bearers of international cooperation began to question their roles as global benefactors as global development remains under threat, ushering in policies focused on national sovereignty and self-interest.

Read the full article about threats to global development by Michael J. Mortimer and T. Alexander Puutio at Stanford Social Innovation Review.