Presented by Colgate-Palmolive
As soon as U.S. President Donald Trump left the stage on Wednesday, all of Davos seemed to exhale.
Trump’s speech was long and hard to follow, with the president jumping from his hatred of windmills to Somali “bandits” in Minnesota. But eventually, Trump told the crowd that he wouldn’t be taking Greenland by force, and as a result, the international order wouldn’t shatter in the Alps.
Hundreds filtered out of the Congress Center. The promenade swelled back to life. Despite the boomerang of emotions — and the feeling of unease that for many continued to percolate — hour by hour, Davos moved on. And for those in global development, it did so with real consequences.
Today, more than $38 billion in humanitarian aid moves through traditional banking systems, often taking days to cross borders and incurring fees along the way. But on Wednesday, the Circle Foundation announced it will be expanding a blockchain-based financial platform across the United Nations — a venture that could completely reshape how aid reaches people in need.
“This partnership allows us to make those transactions in real time, and at a fraction or zero cost compared to … the typical banking sector, which is not really set up to be paying a refugee child on the Sudanese border,” said Ewan Watson, the head of global communications at the UN Refugee Agency, speaking from a Davos stage.
It’s something Watson knows well. In 2021, the UN Refugee Agency launched the U.N. Digital Hub of Treasury Solutions to streamline cash transfers; one year later, it received a grant from Circle — the financial tech firm that now powers the Circle Foundation — to pilot a blockchain payout program to help displaced refugees from Ukraine.
Now, the latter program will be expanded across 15 U.N. agencies, including the U.N. Development Programme and the International Organization for Migration.
Read more: United Nations taps blockchain to speed up aid
The “Accra Reset” has officially stepped into its second phase, accelerating an effort to transform the assistance sector, reduce aid dependency, and put Africa at the center of whatever comes next.
“We depend on others for our security forces, depend on donors for our health and educational systems, and supply the world’s critical minerals but capture almost none of their value,” said Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama, speaking at Davos’ Belvédère Hotel. “In my quiet moments as I try to find solutions, here’s what I’ve learned. Crisis creates clarity. And the clarity is this: We must build our own capacity.”
Mahama unveiled what he referred to as the Belvédère Commitments, which began with the announcement of a global secretariat. He also announced the launch of a high-level global health panel, a policy exchange with Indonesia on critical minerals processing, and an alliance of multilateral financial institutions, the latter of which will engage with Africa’s sovereign wealth funds to create a development investment vehicle.
Read: Next steps for the Accra Reset announced at Davos
ICYMI: The ‘Accra Reset’ — time’s up for the legacy aid system
It’s not just the Accra Reset trying to change the development world. On Wednesday, Arancha González Laya, the former foreign minister of Spain, and Yemi Osinbajo, the former vice president of Nigeria, were named cochairs of the Future of Development Cooperation Coalition — and now, they’re tasked with reimagining the sector in its most fragile moment.
“The future of development cooperation is about resetting what development cooperation can be in the age of geopolitical power games,” González told Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar on Thursday. “Development is another frontier of this geopolitical rivalry.”
Over the coming year, the coalition will engage with governments, international institutions, private sector groups, and civil society to plot a path forward for the sector. It will analyze what worked, what hasn’t, and what needs to change about global development, ultimately publishing a set of recommendations by October 2026.
“In this reimagined system, I think we have to be a little more realistic about what actually works,” Osinbajo told Raj. “For those of us who have been in government, we know that aid as purely philanthropy doesn’t necessarily work efficiently.”
Two months ago, South Africa’s G20 presidency unveiled a proposal to tackle Africa’s growing debt burden — one that called for a “fresh debt-refinancing initiative” for low-income countries. Now, that proposal is headed to Addis Ababa, where it will be discussed by heads of state at the annual African Union Summit in mid-February.
“Some heads of state have already indicated very large support for it, but it needs to be internalized in their decision-making,” Trevor Manuel, South Africa’s former finance minister, tells me. “My hope is that we can then ensure the report can be dealt with country-by-country.”
Manuel served as the cochair of the group that assembled the debt proposal and has taken its work forward in the months since its release. From creating a borrower’s club to elevate the voice of African nations to selling gold reserves at the International Monetary Fund, the proposal has already been endorsed by the African Union chair and Angolan president, João Gonçalves Lourenço.
“We have to push the envelope on development in every country and between countries,” Manuel adds. “That’s a big idea at this stage, and so much hinges on the way in which the report is received formally in the context of the African Union.”
Background reading: G20 panel calls for a new debt refinancing plan for low-income nations
China is often seen as the backbone of the world’s green transition. In 2024 alone, the country installed more than half of the globe’s new wind and solar capacity. That same year, China paid for more than one-third of the world’s investments in clean energy. But at Davos, experts pushed back against the narrative that China alone is driving the trend.
“It’s amazing what’s happening in China, but it’s not only China,” said Ester Baiget, the president and CEO of biosolutions company Novonesis, speaking at Davos on Wednesday.
She pointed to solar adoption in Pakistan, Nigeria, Kenya, and Zambia, as well as biofuels expansion in India and vehicle electrification in Ethiopia. In fact, Baiget added, clean energy uptake is accelerating across low- and middle-income countries — often faster than policy frameworks can keep up.
“In Pakistan, a common bride’s dowry is three panels and an inverter,” she said.
On Thursday, Paraguayan President Santiago Peña pushed the same point, stating his country is using near-100% renewable hydropower to attract industry and digital investment. In fact, Peña said he wants Paraguay to lead on the technology transition, in the hopes of attracting multibillion-dollar inflows to the South American nation.
In many ways, climate investment is one of the safest to make in the development world: There are links to returns, jobs, and a rapidly expanding market. Investing in conflict zones is another story — but that’s the exact business case that Thelma Ekiyor, the new CEO of Women for Women International, is trying to make.
“You are investing in the people, and in the fact that no conflict context will remain that way forever,” Ekiyor told me on Thursday morning. “The businesses that went in early in Rwanda, for example, are reaping the dividends now.”
It’s something the Washington, D.C.-based WfWI has seen firsthand. The organization began work in Rwanda three years after the 1994 genocide that left an estimated 800,000 people dead. Today, the country has turned into a development darling, especially as its economy has continued to grow.
“Rwanda was a lost case to a lot of people,” Ekiyor said. “If we had gone back to the early days of the conflict in Rwanda, and I told you today that some of the biggest tech companies have branches in Rwanda, you would have said no — but they do.”
That belief was the reason why Ekiyor, who has worked in both impact investment and conflict prevention, came to Davos in the first place. Development is about coming in at a point where people want — and need — to rebuild their lives. And with opportunities to rebuild agricultural systems, businesses, and infrastructure, post-conflict zones provide fertile ground.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz signaled a more strategic — and harder-nosed — approach to development, trade, and global partnerships during his speech on Thursday, stating that Germany wants to be a “leading investment location for global capital” and is mobilizing private sector investments in infrastructure, tech, and industry.
In part, that means positioning Europe as the partner of choice for open markets and trade opportunities, while deepening ties with partners in India, Mexico, Indonesia, and the South American trade bloc Mercosur.
What that means for development finance out of the world’s second-largest donor is not new. But it is clear: Future German engagement will prioritize competitiveness, security, and strategically aligned partnerships — with development increasingly framed as part of Europe’s geopolitical and economic resilience.
ICYMI: Germany charts a new course for global aid
Related: Is Germany the next leader in ODA, and how will it spend its money? (Pro)
+ Not yet a Devex Pro member? Start your 15-day free trial today and access all our expert analyses, insider insights, funding data, events, and more. Check out all the exclusive content available to Pro members.
By Friday afternoon, Davos was officially winding down. Many headed to the slopes around town, while the luckiest among us headed to St. Moritz, a luxury Alpine resort an hour-and-a-half from Davos. And to top even that, one crypto founder I met was flying back to the mountain he’d just bought in northern Italy.
For your Devex correspondent, the week was a whirlwind — and while some things felt the same — the cold, and the tendency for people to glance at my badge before my face — so many others felt sharper, tenser, and more consequential than years past.
This year’s Davos pulsed with the whims of Trump, and geopolitics took center stage in a way that rivaled all World Economic Forum annual meetings that came before it. But for me, it’s back to Washington — where those in global development can expect much of the same.
• Haitian rapper Wyclef Jean performing “Hips Don’t Lie” at the annual Devex-Circle mixer
• Jeremy Allaire, Circle’s chief executive officer, beat-boxing alongside Wyclef Jean during his performance
• The DHL robot dog shaking hands with ski-outfitted children — and a few white-badge attendees — on the promenade
• Paul Polman, climate campaigner and former CEO of Unilever, closing out the night by dancing to “Imagine” at the TPC House
• Steve Witkoff, U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, stalled at the security line — and his team was trying to argue Witkoff’s way in without a forgotten badge
Devex reporter Jesse Chase-Lubitz and Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar contributed to this special edition of the Newswire.
Sign up to Newswire for an inside look at the biggest stories in global development.