Icebergs melt slowly, deceiving us with their appearance of stability. Dial-up internet, with all its whirring and beeping, was a melting iceberg: Even after the advent of broadband, it took more than a decade before this clearly inferior technology effectively disappeared.
“Old Aid,” as I termed it in my 2019 book “The Business of Changing the World,” is much the same. Even the fiercest defenders of international cooperation have long been frustrated with the project-based, risk-averse, bureaucratic approach endemic to development and humanitarian institutions.
But they’ve often voiced those frustrations in hushed tones — afraid that even constructive criticism could undermine the carefully constructed coalition that has led to the highest foreign aid budgets and some of the biggest development successes in history.
About the author
Raj Kumarraj_devex
Raj Kumar is the President and Editor-in-Chief at Devex, the media platform for the global development community. He is a media leader and former humanitarian council chair for the World Economic Forum and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. His work has led him to more than 50 countries, where he has had the honor to meet many of the aid workers and development professionals who make up the Devex community. He is the author of the book "The Business of Changing the World," a go-to primer on the ideas, people, and technology disrupting the aid industry.
