Devex Pro Insider: Goodbye and good riddance, 2025

Hello, and welcome to our final Insider of 2025. Devex is taking a well-earned break for the holidays. Because of the way the new year falls, it'll be a slightly longer break than normal, and our next edition will be with you on Jan. 11. In the meantime, let’s stop and look back. It’s been a wild year for international development, and it’s probably a useful time to take stock. The year has been dominated by the evisceration of the U.S. Agency for International Development and the consequences that have had throughout the international community. We’ve seen thousands of job losses. It’s increasingly clear that shutting down USAID wasn’t the plan. It was a snap decision driven by grudges, hate, misinformation, cold political calculations, break-first, ask-later mentality — take your pick — that has echoed throughout the year. And it appears to have been followed by paralysis. This week, looking at spending, it’s apparent that the United States spent relatively little on international aid between February and September of this year, and almost all of that was on programs retained from the Biden era. The rest went on a handful of one-off humanitarian projects likely worth less than $1 billion. In the last couple of months, we’ve started to see a shift in the gears from the Department of State, which has taken on primary responsibility for development spending from USAID. A list of key players is beginning to emerge. It’s started hiring again, and obligated over $4 billion to a series of health compacts. Whether this is a one-off or the aid machinery beginning to stir back to life, we do not yet know. Though it isn’t just USAID that has suffered. All across Europe, there have been aid cuts. The beleaguered leaders of Germany, the U.K., and France have all struggled with populism, weak growth, and an increasingly bellicose approach from the U.S. and Russia, and have slashed aid as a result. The only areas where there has been growth have been in the Gulf States and in the world of philanthropy. Meanwhile, across the global south, there continue to be challenges. The world is struggling with the impacts of artificial intelligence, autocracy, and rising inequality. There are more nations in conflict than at any point since 1945, and the specters of climate change and debt continue to haunt world leaders. That being said, living standards continue to rise, and the reaction of many national leaders to a loss of aid has not been sorrow, but a grim determination to roll up their sleeves and get on with things. So, where does this leave 2026? The truth is, it’s hard to know. All of the predictions about 2025 were dead wrong, and unfortunately, any analysis of the next year will be as well. The trend lines point to a slow rebuilding of U.S. aid spending, a slight recovery in Europe — although maybe not immediately in development — and a slight ebb in the level of humanitarian need. But the trend lines are rarely correct. As the physicist Niels Bohr is said to have said, it’s hard to make predictions. Especially about the future. With that in mind, we’ll wish you a restful holiday break and good things for 2026. Bits and pieces All this Wiles. On the subject of USAID and the lack of a plan, look no further than the explosive interview with Susie Wiles, the chief of staff at the White House, who spoke to Vanity Fair on 11 occasions in the last year. Readers in the U.S. may well be familiar with the interviews, which have occupied plenty of column inches over recent days, but it’s worth looking again at her comments, in which she is highly critical of the closure of USAID. “I was initially aghast,” Vanity Fair quotes Wiles as saying. “Because I think anybody that pays attention to government and has ever paid attention to USAID believed, as I did, that they do very good work.” She lays the blame primarily at the feet of Elon Musk, of whom she is critical throughout her interviews, calling him an “odd, odd duck,” and suggesting that he is a ketamine user. “Not the way I would have done it,” she is quoted as saying. “No rational person could think the USAID process was a good one. Nobody.” The interviews paint a picture of a dysfunctional, out-of-control billionaire with a break-it-and-fix-it-later attitude who ran amok. But for whatever reason, the White House stood by and did nothing to stop it. What does 2026 hold? Our jobs team has been looking back at the ways the recruitment environment shifted in 2025, and we’ve been casting our gaze forward to 2026 to see if that might look any better. We’ve got a list of resources you might want to use, and a series of resolutions for the new year. For anyone starting — or continuing — a job hunt in the aid sector, we wish you all the best. Good health? We’ve also had a chance to take stock of the recent spate of global health compacts signed by the Department of State. These deals, worth several billion dollars, have made up the lion’s share of new spending this year. My colleague Sara Jerving spoke to the experts to get all the latest details, and the recording is now exclusively available to Pro members. Board battles. There’s been an extraordinary battle at Oxfam GB. It’s perhaps the most storied U.K. international development organization, but like many U.K. nonprofits, it’s been struggling with funding cuts and redundancies. Earlier this month, Halima Begum was forced out of her job as CEO by the board after an independent investigation into allegations of bullying. But Begum’s lawyers have announced plans to take the charity to an employment tribunal. It’s provoked a bitter public series of claims and counterclaims among Begum’s detractors and supporters, with the latter saying she was victimized because she is a woman of color. Zero bid. Save the Children International, one of the world’s largest INGOs, has announced a new policy of not bidding on some pots of money in order to ensure that it doesn’t compete with local organizations. It’s an extremely interesting development in the aid community, which has long spoken about how localization is a top priority, but has done little to put its money where its mouth is. Abdurahman Sharif, senior humanitarian director at Save the Children International, announced on his organization’s website that STCI would gradually withdraw from country-based pooled funds administered by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, with complete withdrawal by the end of 2027. “This is not merely a matter of efficiency or cost-effectiveness, though the evidence supports both. It is a matter of principle. Local organisations are rooted in their communities. They understand the context, the culture and the needs in ways that international actors never fully can. They are present before crises emerge and remain long after international attention has moved elsewhere,” he wrote. Sharif called on other INGOs to do the same, saying that withdrawal would be meaningless if other international NGOs simply filled the gap. “We urge our fellow international organisations to examine their own positions,” he wrote. “Are we prepared to accept a redefinition of our role in the service of a more locally-led humanitarian system?” Merry quizmas. Devex is hosting an end-of-year quiz to test your knowledge of development in 2025. The winner will get a year’s free Pro subscription — or an extension of a year if you’re already a Pro member. So let’s test your knowledge and see how you do. How will Devex spend the holidays? Since this is the final Insider before the holidays, we thought it might be interesting to help you to get to know the team that put it together. Devex is an international organization, with people based in more than 20 countries — predominantly in our main offices in Washington, Barcelona, and Manila, but all over the world. I’m currently the only Devexer in the United Kingdom, for example. Here are a few holiday memories and traditions from me and some of my colleagues who are regular contributors. Since I’m writing this newsletter, I get to go first. As a Brit, my Christmas Day is very similar to the archetypal movie picture of the holidays — turkey, presents under a tree — but my break features a double celebration. Ten years ago this week, my wife went into labor late on Christmas Eve, and a marathon 36 hours later, my younger daughter emerged into the world. So each year, on what the U.K. calls Boxing Day, we get up and open presents all over again. But it’s even more of a marathon for my colleague Ayenat Mersie, who reports for us on climate, philanthropy, and food. For an Ethiopian American, Dec. 25 still gets its moment, with a tree and gifts. But for most Ethiopians, like much of the rest of the Orthodox faith, the real celebration begins on the night of Jan. 6, starting with midnight mass, before ringing in Christmas on Jan. 7. For our U.N. Reporter Colum Lynch, Christmas is a multinational affair. His wife is half-Swedish by way of Buenos Aires, and so Christmas sees the family host Julbord, a Swedish Christmas holiday buffet, featuring gravlax and herring, rye bread and ham, meatballs and lingonberry jam. But the standout dish is Jansson’s Temptation, which combines potatoes, onions, anchovies, and cream. For our Health Reporter Sara Jerving, there’s the experience of being an American in Nairobi, where she lives. Many city-dwelling Kenyans also have a village they consider their home, and it’s there they choose to spend the holidays. Those who do stay behind in Nairobi often say how it's a special time of year because the city becomes unusually tranquil. A rare week when you don't have to worry about the city's infamous traffic, air pollution, and noise. For Senior Editor Helen Murphy, there’s a special turkey recipe, acquired by mistake. Helen was hosting Christmas dinner at her house in rural Colombia, when the oven died. Her only option was to brush the cobwebs from an ancient wood-burning stove. Enter Doña Flor: tiny, formidable, a local legend who had lived for decades in a one-room wooden house, who arrived with a small dog and found Helen struggling in a kitchen full of smoke. Five minutes later, she had a roaring fire going — in the right part of the stove — and the turkey was back on track. Against every expectation, it emerged smoky, juicy, and perfect: the best turkey ever. And Helen has roasted Christmas turkeys on a wood stove ever since. Moving on ISC2, the association for international cyber professionals, has named Scott Beale as its new CEO. Beale has more than 25 years of experience spanning government, nonprofit, and international sectors. He previously served as associate director of the U.S. Peace Corps, where he led a $300 million operation across 64 countries. He also spent 15 years as the CEO and founder of Atlas Corps, a global talent development organization that trained emerging leaders from more than 100 countries. Justin Vaïsse has been named as the first president of the Paris Peace Forum Endowment Fund. Vaïsse founded the forum in 2018, and the endowment fund, announced this autumn, aims to generate stable income to finance the organization’s activities. The Aga Khan Development Network has become the first donor, with a pledge of €10 million. Jeanne Marrazzo has been named as the new CEO of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Dr. Marrazzo is an internationally recognized infectious diseases physician, researcher and public health leader who most recently served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health. Carl Manlan has joined the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, or AGRA, as chief, partnerships and business development. Manlan has spent 20 years in senior operating roles, mostly across development organizations, but also at Visa. Madeleine Short Fabic has started a new role as the senior strategy and technical adviser with the global health and development team at the International Finance Corporation. She will guide the future of the Demographic and Health Surveys Program. The END Fund has appointed Dr. Shamma Khalifa Al Mazrouei to its board. Dr. Shamma serves as acting director-general of the Mohamed bin Zayed Foundation for Humanity, where she leads the foundation in its mission to advance human potential and opportunity. 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