The United Kingdom’s brutal 40% aid cut, following the United States’ lead, accompanies the global unravelling of a broader fabric. We’re watching norms that defined the post-war world collapse: European security guarantees in doubt, international law disregarded, media independence eroded, soft power dismantled.
Aid hasn’t just been reduced — it’s been traduced as a relic of that old order, weaponized in the new culture wars, and abandoned in favor of a more transactional politics. We should fight to mitigate the immediate damage caused by these cuts. But we should also be asking ourselves: where do we go from here?
Let’s leave behind the tired, binary argument about official development assistance, or ODA. Even after this wave of cuts, it is likely that total annual global flows will still sit at around $100 billion. That’s too much for us to ignore.
About the author
Adrian Lovett
Adrian Lovett is the executive director for the United Kingdom, Middle East, and Asia Pacific at ONE. He has been instrumental in successful campaigns such as Make Poverty History and the Jubilee 2000 debt relief initiative, and has held leadership roles at Oxfam, Save the Children, and the World Wide Web Foundation.
