The United States has taken a cautious stance over the United Nations’ push for new global governance around artificial intelligence, instead calling for the organization to strengthen existing bodies.
Also in today’s edition: The United Kingdom muddies the water over asylum aid, Tinder-like learning aims to help philanthropy meet the oceans, and global aid rebounds, but not enough.
US challenges UN's AI vision
The Biden administration isn't just hesitant; it’s throwing cold water on U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres' ambitious vision of erecting new global institutions to govern the ever-expanding realm of artificial intelligence.
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In a confidential paper sent to foreign governments at the U.N. and seen by Devex Senior Global Reporter Colum Lynch, the U.S. is making it clear now's not the time for lofty plans. Instead, it wants the U.N. to bolster existing international bodies already on the front lines of promoting lifesaving initiatives, shaping ethical norms, and crafting guardrails against the potential misuse of AI.
What’s the concern? The U.S. believes rushing into creating new U.N. governance mechanisms without a solid understanding of the limitations of current agencies could be jumping the gun. “It is our view that any proposals for new processes, panels, funds, partnerships, and/or mechanisms are premature,” the paper says.
This stance deals a severe blow to Guterres' efforts to position the U.N. at the center of global AI governance, especially in tackling pressing issues like poverty and inequality.
The U.S. paper challenges the recommendations of a panel of 38 experts appointed by Guterres, known as the High-Level Advisory Body on AI, which champions a robust U.N. role in global AI governance, echoing sentiments believed to be shared by U.N. leadership.
“This technology cries out for governance,” the experts say in their report. “The United Nations lies at the heart of the rules-based international order.”
But in a world where AI's rapid advance could reshape everything from health care to warfare, the stakes couldn't be higher, writes Colum. And as the U.S. applies the brakes, the debate over who will guide AI's dizzying march and ensure it doesn't overstep its mark continues.
Exclusive: Biden administration douses UN's AI governance aspirations (Pro)
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UK aid comments raise eyebrows
A controversial issue just got more controversial. The U.K. government's recent comments about money to pay hotel bills for asylum-seekers have left some open mouths.
The top civil servant at the Home Office claimed that international rules left it no choice but to allocate funds from the aid budget — but that apparently isn’t so. Matthew Rycroft’s explanation doesn't hold water, according to the Development Assistance Committee, which says member countries have discretion to designate such expenses.
This comes on the heels of a pretty scathing review of U.K. aid by the committee, which sought a cap on domestic spending to safeguard against such appropriations, writes Devex U.K. Correspondent Rob Merrick.
Adding to the controversy: Until the Conservative Party took office in 2010, the U.K. chose not to report domestic spending on refugees as official development assistance despite the number of asylum-seekers rising rapidly in the early 2000s. Fast forward to 2023, and a substantial portion of the aid budget — 27.9%, totaling £4.3 billion — was spent within the U.K. mostly for refugees.
Gideon Rabinowitz, director of policy and advocacy at Bond, the U.K. network for aid organizations, says of Rycroft’s claim: “This is not the case. Before 2010, the U.K. government did not report refugee spending as ODA on the principled basis that it did not think it was an appropriate way to spend U.K. aid money.”
“The DAC has urged donors to take a conservative approach and was very clear in its midterm review of U.K. aid that the U.K. is not acting within the spirit of these rules,” he adds.
Read: UK incorrectly claims it is forced to use aid budget on refugee hotels
+ Catch up on our coverage of the U.K. aid sector.
Philanthropy meets ocean science
Imagine a matchmaking tool that pairs philanthropic funding with ocean science, operating with the ease of a dating app like Tinder.
The platform, Ocean Matcher — developed by a coalition of philanthropies in collaboration with UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission — does just that. It was unveiled at the 2024 Ocean Decade Conference in Barcelona, Spain, earlier this month and aims to address the funding gap for Ocean Decade Actions by matching philanthropic funding with ocean sustainability solutions, writes Emma Smith for Devex.
The idea is to revitalize ocean science. But despite the urgency, only about 24% of funding needs are met. Hailing the tool as a “game changer,” Vidar Helgesen of UNESCO’s IOC notes the “big role” philanthropic funding can play in providing resources for the Decade Action initiatives since it can be “more agile” than other funding sources and can help test concepts that can later be scaled up.
Read: How Tinder-inspired tech can match philanthropic funds to ocean action
Global aid rebounds, but still falls short
Amid ongoing global challenges like debt distress and the climate crisis, support from wealthy donor nations to the world’s lowest-income countries is showing signs of a bounce after a concerning dip in 2022. But a warning comes with this apparent rebound — it falls short of the substantial assistance required.
A record $223.7 billion of official development assistance was delivered in 2023 by the 31 members of the Development Assistance Committee hosted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development — a 1.8% real-terms rise on $211 billion in 2022, the annual statistics show.
The partial reversal was helped by a 6.2% fall in the share of ODA that DAC members spent domestically on hosting asylum-seekers — although that sum still stands at $31 billion, or 13.8% of ODA, around double the proportion as recently as 2021, writes Rob.
DAC chair Carsten Staur says the bounce back in aid to the group of least developed countries and sub-Saharan Africa showed members had protected “longer-term development assistance primarily to the poor, vulnerable and most fragile countries.”
But he warns it was “not enough,” adding: “Given the challenges many of our partner countries are facing, stemming from climate change, from the long-term effects of COVID, from the war in Ukraine and all the knock-on effects of these crises, we're falling short.”
Read: Rich nations reverse aid cuts to poorest — but debt distress still looms
Also read: 6 things we learned from the 2023 ODA figures (Pro)
+ Listen: Tune in to the latest episode of our weekly podcast in which Devex’s Anna Gawel and Michael Igoe sit down with GiveDirectly’s Yolande Wright to reflect on Barbados leader Mia Mottley’s remarks on the importance of debt restructuring to help lower-income countries overcome challenges and other top stories from this week.
In other news
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is poised to sign a decarbonization pact with Brazil during his upcoming visit in May, which will focus on biofuel tech and anti-deforestation efforts. [Nikkei Asia]
U.S. sustainable fund withdrawals hit $8.8 billion in the first quarter of 2024 due to rising interest rates, modest 2023 returns, greenwashing concerns, and continued ESG-investing politicization. [Reuters]
German Development Minister Svenja Schulze urged the world’s wealthiest individuals to increase their contributions toward climate protection. [DW]
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About the author
Helen Murphy
Helen is an award-winning journalist and Senior Editor at Devex, where she edits coverage on global development in the Americas. Based in Colombia, she previously covered war, politics, financial markets, and general news for Reuters, where she headed the bureau, and for Bloomberg in Colombia and Argentina, where she witnessed the financial meltdown. She started her career in London as a reporter for Euromoney Publications before moving to Hong Kong to work for a daily newspaper.
