Geopolitical and economic disruption are converging with a historic decline in official development assistance, which fell 23.1% from 2024 to 2025 with further reductions projected. Combined with budget cuts to multilateral organisations that threaten to trigger system-wide delivery failures, these forces are compounding pre-existing fragilities, and driving increases in unproductive debt, poverty and inequality. Life-saving services, growth and resilience are undermined.
This session examines how these forces shape the outlook for low- and middle-income countries, how space for international co-operation has changed and asks how development co-operation can remain relevant in a fragmenting world.
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The Future of Development Co-operation