Debate on the Future of Development Cooperation – Debating Development Research

26/06/2026

Beyond Aid: The Political Economy of International Solidarity

Who Counts When Vulnerability Has No Strategic Value?

By Nadia Molenaers

The debate about the future of development cooperation has accelerated sharply. Aid budgets are shrinking in several donor countries. Geopolitical rivalry is reshaping international partnerships. New actors and new financing mechanisms are challenging long-standing assumptions about how international cooperation should be organised. For many observers, the central question is what comes after aid.

23/06/202626/06/2026

Towards a New Governance Architecture for Development Cooperation

By José Antonio Alonso

At the beginning of the 1960s, OECD donors decided to establish a specialized body—the Development Assistance Committee (DAC)—to govern the aid system. Since then, the DAC has proven effective in defining standards, harmonizing reporting, disseminating good practices, and promoting learning and accountability among donors. These achievements, however, go along with a fundamental limitation: the exclusive nature of the institution. Although development cooperation formally embraces the principle of country ownership, the governance of the system excludes the representation and voice of those who are expected to exercise that ownership.

12/06/202626/06/2026

Three Implications of the Oil Shock for the Turbulent Political Economy of Development Cooperation

By Andy Sumner and Stephan Klingebiel

The 2026 US–Israel–Iran war has produced what the International Energy Agency describes as the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market. Brent crude rose from around $70 at the end of February to a peak of about $140 in early April before settling around $100 as of early June 2026. In a new Brief we argue that the significance of the oil shock lies not only in the price increase itself but in its timing.

14/04/202626/06/2026

Geostrategic Axes and Transitions in Development Cooperation

By José Antonio Alonso

The international aid system is going through one of the most delicate moments in its history, largely due to its inability to respond effectively to changes in the global environment. The crisis affects the broad universe of development cooperation, but it is particularly acute in the case of Official Development Assistance (ODA), its most clearly defined component and the one whose foundations have been most eroded. The decline in Official Development Assistance (ODA) in 2025 is merely the epiphenomenon of a deeper and more structural malaise. Not only have the sources of aid’s legitimacy weakened, as noted by Molenaers, but so too have the power structures, doctrinal underpinnings, and value system upon which the aid architecture has traditionally rested.

31/03/202626/06/2026

The Double Legitimacy Crisis of the Old Aid Order: Four Scenarios for Development Cooperation and their Plausibility

By Nadia Molenaers

Development cooperation is not simply facing another cyclical debate about effectiveness. It is facing something deeper: a crisis of the very roles through which it has historically been justified. For decades, development cooperation drew its legitimacy from two overlapping functions. First, it was seen as an instrument of international influence: a way for states to build relations, project (democratic, human rights) values, and shape the international environment. Second, it was presented as a symbol of international solidarity: an expression of moral responsibility, redistribution, and a concern for global inequality.