Is global development decolonizing or recolonizing?

In a recent Brookings piece, George Ingram and Anthony Pipa stated, “The cumulative result of these recent development policy shifts is a sense that the post-World War II era of international development cooperation has, for the most part, ended, and that the world is entering a new era.” This sentiment is echoed on social media, with many lamenting the United States retreat from international development as the end of an era. But which era is ending, and what is emerging in its place? The rapid decrease in development finance, the United Nations’ downsizing, and declining faith in postwar development principles may mark the end of what Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president, called the neocolonial era. Yet even Nkrumah could not have imagined the scale of the global development ecosystem, anchored in U.N. doctrines on human rights and sustainable development, that has evolved into a comprehensive worldview over the last 60 years. International institutions — U.N. agencies, Bretton Woods organizations, bilateral donors, NGOs, and civil society organizations, or CSOs — shape policy and control development finance that low-income countries rely on to fund infrastructure, public services, and consumption. Initially staffed by Western experts and now increasingly by professionals from the global south, these organizations draft strategies, manage budgets and spending, and directly or indirectly deliver a panoply of services. Official development assistance, ODA, accounted for around 23% of total finance in least developed countries, or LDCs, including tax revenue and private investment. Health, education, and humanitarian response are especially reliant on external funding. This ecosystem is not monolithic. It encompasses thousands of organizations with diverse and sometimes competing interests — from behemoths such as the World Bank to mission-driven NGOs. Nor are efforts to promote a rules-based order and general well-being sinister. But the system does reproduce — and many argue perpetuates — existing global inequality. For example, many U.N. staff and aid workers enjoy a distinct lifestyle reminiscent of their colonial predecessors. Expat development professionals often enjoy diplomatic privileges, live in provided housing, send their children to private schools, and socialize in exclusive circles. While claims of aid workers leading a lavish lifestyle are usually overblown, and as a group they are committed and hardworking, the common person in Nairobi or Dhaka can be forgiven for feeling little has changed since colonial times. Despite the development industry’s efforts to reduce poverty and empower communities, it is criticized for contributing to inequality. Today, two-thirds of low-income countries are at high risk of — or already in — debt distress, and 3.4 billion people live in countries where debt interest payments are greater than expenditure on health or education. This is the worst debt crisis in modern history and a damning indictment of the global financial system. Resource-strapped local officials often view NGOs’ well-equipped offices and high salaries as a parallel structure that poaches top talent and undermines local authorities’ legitimacy. Governments can see NGOs and civil society organizations as unaccountable and perpetuating dependency, while NGOs see rising regulation as an anti-democratic closing of civil society space. Both sides have a point. Whatever its faults, the development system has produced remarkable achievements. Between 1960 and 2020, more people escaped poverty than ever before. Diseases such as smallpox and guinea worm were eradicated or sharply reduced. Since 2000, health interventions halved preventable child deaths, maternal mortality, and malaria deaths. Global HIV/AIDS efforts have saved over 25 million lives. Hundreds of millions have gained access to clean water and basic education, and higher education enrollment has risen by around 91%. There has also been a decrease in interstate conflict, greater human rights protection, and broader recognition of women’s rights. “Replacing goals of sustainable development and shared prosperity with ideologies of narrow self-interest is bound to result in an increasingly contested, unpredictable, and unhappy world.” --— 2020 seems to be the high-water mark for much of this progress. The COVID-19 pandemic led to setbacks and political headwinds that continue today. Populist movements in the Americas and Europe, alongside renewed great power competition, have triggered sharp declines in development finance and a loss of political will. Tens of thousands of aid sector jobs have vanished in 2025, including more than 10,000 at USAID, 20,000 across the U.N., and thousands more at NGOs and CSOs. Some policymakers believe a less influential international community presence is overdue and will create space for local initiative and force governments to become more self-reliant. Time will tell; but as the postwar order fades, so will its neocolonial complexion. Colonialism redux? The loss of development dollars that pumped millions into local economies, supporting small businesses and the middle class, will likely exacerbate inequality. Credible analyses indicate that reduced funding and anti-development measures — such as high tariffs on poor countries’ exports — will increase poverty, hardship, and mortality. Unfortunately, what is replacing the faltering international development industry looks extractive, coercive, and exploitative, echoing the colonial era’s scramble for resources and influence through conquest, proselytizing, and exploitative trade. Unconstrained by U.N. conventions or legal sanctions, such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act that prohibits bribery of foreign officials by U.S. citizens and entities, major powers can bully, bribe, and coerce the weak to get what they want. Some countries, abandoning the idea of shared prosperity, are using aid as a transactional tool, reminiscent of colonial agents’ use of trade goods to secure land concessions and trading rights. Colonialism’s “three Ms” — mercenaries (the Wagner Group in the Sahel), missionaries (Islamic extremists and Christian fundamentalists), and merchants promoting “trade not aid”— again compete for resources and influence. As with the system of indirect rule, the aim is to use local structures for backroom deals that benefit elites on both sides. This environment favors authoritarianism and stokes ethnic and tribal divisions for plunder and profit. Advanced military technology remains a pivotal source of diplomatic leverage and a market for arms manufacturers. Borderless digital tech — controlled as much by powerful companies as nations — introduces new, unpredictable dynamics. While the internet and smartphones facilitate communication, business transactions, and improved public services, they also create an alarming ability for surveillance and control via social media manipulation, wiretapping, facial recognition, and cyber sabotage. Whether emerging technologies — now supercharged by artificial intelligence — bring abundance or a new “technofeudalism” is an ongoing debate, but no one doubts their importance. The emerging era is not Nkrumah’s neocolonialism. Our multipolar global order is more complex and crowded with countervailing institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the African Union, and the BRICS+ economic and political bloc. Middle-power nations and nonstate players shape global affairs in ways that were unimaginable decades ago. And many lower-income countries are more capable and confident, as evidenced by their competitive tech and manufacturing sectors. As the winds of change blow toward the belief that might makes right, we should remember that the colonial era was defined by the struggle to reclaim sovereignty. Replacing goals of sustainable development and shared prosperity with ideologies of narrow self-interest is bound to result in an increasingly contested, unpredictable, and unhappy world.