Foreign aid is shrinking—quietly but decisively. The United States and the United Kingdom, once the architects and funders of the global development agenda, have slashed budgets. France and Germany are retrenching. Australia has already led the way down. Aid is no longer an expression of global leadership—it’s a line item to be cut.
This retreat is often blamed on fiscal pressure or populist nationalism. But there’s a more uncomfortable truth: the development agenda itself has become too broad, too vague, and too politically fragile to defend.
When Goals Multiply, Support Disappears
The old model of aid, focused on eradicating poverty and boosting growth, had clarity and currency. The 1990 World Development Report argued for investing in labor productivity, education, and health as the surest way out of poverty. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) carried that spirit forward: eight goals, measurable and morally urgent.
Then came the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): 17 goals, 169 targets, and a commitment to everything from gender equity to ocean conservation to institutional reform. In its effort to be inclusive, the agenda became amorphous—something for everyone, but not enough to rally anyone.
As ambition expanded, political support contracted. The SDGs are hard to explain, harder to measure, and almost impossible to sell to skeptical voters. In Washington and Westminster, they offer few headlines, no quick wins, and little electoral payoff.
A Vacuum Filled by Vagueness
The result is a system where donors cut, recipients muddle through, and no one is accountable. Aid is increasingly framed around domestic imperatives: migration control, commercial interests, or geopolitical rivalry with China. Meanwhile, the development sector clings to a universal agenda that lacks prioritisation and resists hard choices.
Evidence from decades of aid practice tells us what works: focused goals, targeted financing, local leadership. Yet these principles are too often buried beneath a mass of slogans and shifting priorities. The political centre—once a reliable advocate for evidence-based, results-oriented aid—is largely absent from today’s debates.
The Politics of Precision
If development is to regain political and moral traction in an era of retreat, it must do less, better. That means choosing poverty reduction over policy sprawl. It means prioritising outcomes over optics. And it means re-anchoring the case for aid in what voters, taxpayers, and low-income countries can see and measure.
The SDGs are a noble document. But nobility is not enough. With Western political support evaporating, the era of everything-for-everyone development is ending. What replaces it must be leaner, sharper, and far more focused.
Otherwise, the next cut will not be to the aid budget—it will be to the idea of development itself.