Devex Pro Insider: Predictions for 2025, and how to lead in the age of Trump

Hello Pro readers, and a Happy New Year to you all! I hope you’re all feeling well-rested — because it’s going to be a busy and challenging year ahead. To help prepare us for what’s to come, we’ve brought together predictions for 2025 from global development leaders, including Agnes Kalibata, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, and Peter A. Singer. Do check them out. And while the events calendar is still looking quiet — meaning I’m skipping our usual Up Next section — one event you will want to attend next week is Devex’s annual development forecast. Devex President Raj Kumar will be discussing the trends that will shape the world of global development in the year ahead, exclusively with Pro members, and we’d love to hear your questions. Join us for that on Wednesday. Also in today’s edition: The best-paid global development opportunity of 2024, how to lead in the age of Trump, and the new U.N. relief chief kicks off an anti-bureaucracy drive. Bits and pieces Trump updates. Of course, the upcoming inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is looming over. In the two weeks since my last newsletter, members of his transition team have indicated their preference to pull the U.S. out of the World Health Organization on his first day in office. Though not unexpected, it would be a gut-punch to global health if such a withdrawal went ahead. My colleague Jenny Lei Ravelo will be bringing you more on what’s in store for WHO in 2025 soon. Meanwhile, Trump named Mauricio Claver-Carone — the former president of the Inter-American Development Bank whose term was cut short by allegations of ethics violations, which he denied — to be his special envoy for Latin America. The appointment suggests a return to harsh policies against leftist governments in the region, and Claver-Carone has also vowed to counter Chinese influence. The special envoy designation could allow Claver-Carone to avoid the Senate nomination process and the questions about his early departure from IDB that would inevitably come with it. Difficult times. With political changes — particularly but not only in the U.S. — we are likely to see increasing hostility toward aid funding and global development causes this year. In our most recent Devex Pro Leader Roundtable, we asked three leaders from the global development sector — Ndidi Okonkwo Nwuneli from the ONE Campaign, who was recently named one of the most influential Africans working in civil society by New African Magazine; Sean Callahan from Catholic Relief Services; and Hans Peter Lankes from ODI Global — for their insights on how to lead a team through uncertain times. Here are some of their tips: • Be honest and transparent about the challenges. “We’re all facing tough financial situations as organizations … Being transparent and accountable about how the funds are utilized, sharing the burden with the team, and being efficient and effective with how we work is critical,” Nwuneli said. • Use partnerships to share the burden, and share advice and insights with other leaders, many of whom are experiencing similar challenges. “We need each other more than ever,” Nwuneli added. • Be seen as a supporter of your staff. “[Make] sure people see us as not just the cover of the book, but that we’re out there providing support for them, and making sure we respond when they need it,” Callahan said. • Avoid defeatism. “People join these organizations for … the difference they feel they can make,” Lankes said. It’s important to keep those ideas alive. You can catch up on the full event here. Fletcher’s fight. Tom Fletcher, the U.N.’s new relief chief, didn’t spend his Christmas Eve relaxing, instead he was reviewing a report on tackling bureaucracy in the humanitarian sector — and he’s got ineffective leaders and unproductive conferences in his sights. Fletcher, who is still less than two months into the job, has made the issue a priority. On his first day in office, he commissioned his deputy, Joyce Msuya, and one of his predecessors, Jan Egeland, to put together the report, which is now available to read. In response, Fletcher said he would be personally championing five areas of action within UNOCHA, the agency he leads: • “Liberate staff to do humanitarian work,” e.g., reducing country engagement in HQ processes. • “Strengthen humanitarian leadership,” which expressly includes “genuine assessment of our humanitarian leaders,” including humanitarian coordinators and OCHA heads of office. • “Build a more agile crisis response,” e.g., more clearly defining the triggers for emergencies. • “Streamline the IASC,” aka Inter-Agency Standing Committee, the U.N.’s high-level humanitarian coordination committee. • “Make OCHA an innovation pioneer,” e.g., by harnessing artificial intelligence and “scaling back unwieldy events and conferences that do not contribute to our core mission.” As Fletcher himself notes, “much of this will be challenging,” and no doubt there’ll be disagreement over some of the changes he wants to make. But this agenda will be one to watch as the year unfolds. Chin chin. As some of you may have clocked by now, I’m British, so I’ll finish with my annual roundup of global development and humanitarian figures recognized in the King’s New Year Honours List. This year they include: Antony Spalton, chief of the UNICEF operation in Darfur; Alison Elliott, a professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, for services to global health; surgeons Graeme Groom and Stephen Mannion for their contributions to trauma surgery in disaster and conflict zones; Barbara Laing, founder of the Mnyakongo School Project in Tanzania; and Matthew Wyatt, director of humanitarian, migration, and food security at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. Congratulations to all! ✉️ Do you have insights into any of this week’s bits and pieces? Let me know by replying to this email. In memoriam Most of you will have heard by now that former U.S. president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Jimmy Carter died on Dec. 29, at the age of 100 — but there may be details of his extensive humanitarian and global health work that you’re not familiar with. My colleague Anna Gawel provided a roundup of his legacy. Raffaella Iodice, a former Chargée d’Affaires of the EU for Afghanistan, also died Dec. 29. She had previously served as a head of unit within ECHO, the EU’s humanitarian service, and had been appointed director of the European External Action Service’s Crisis Management Centre just a few months ago. Stat of the week $750,000 --— That's the salary for the best-paid job opportunity advertised on our global development job board last year. Find out who offered it in our special report on which organizations and sectors provided the highest-paying opportunities in 2024. Moving on Friederike Röder has an interesting new gig. She left Global Citizen after five years to become director of the secretariat of the Global Solidarity Levies Task Force. The task force was launched at the COP28 U.N climate summit and is tasked with exploring options for internationally coordinated climate levies, which will be presented at COP30 in November this year. Vincent Cochetel has left UNHCR, the U.N.’s refugee agency, after 39 years. During that time he led the organization’s Europe office and served as head of the resettlement service, among other roles. He also spent nearly a year in captivity after being kidnapped while leading the organization’s office in North Ossetia. Solomon Zewdu has been appointed as the new chief executive officer of the END Fund, which works on neglected tropical diseases. Zewdu has worked for the Mastercard Foundation, Gates Foundation, and PEPFAR. Did we miss one? Is there a change on the horizon? Let us know at devexpro@devex.com. New year, new job? Many people will be considering the next steps in their careers at the start of the new year. To help you do that, make use of Devex’s job board — the world’s largest global development job board — and explore what’s out there. Some of the latest high-level opportunities include: • Manager, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, World Bank. • Director of Advocacy, Japan, Médecins Sans Frontières. • Principal Data Architect, Vital Strategies. Find more here.