United States President Donald Trump’s blitzkrieg campaign against the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has demolished the organisation described as the “world’s largest donor” and left aid workers scrambling to salvage the international development aid and humanitarian response system. Many have lamented the grave consequences of the US president’s unprecedented decision as well as moves by other countries, such as the United Kingdom, to cut aid.
In a LinkedIn post commenting on the situation, Luca Crudeli, who said he has been “immersed in development since 2003”, spoke of “the sense that the moral center of our work is quietly slipping away” and “the uneasy realization that development’s humanistic soul might be lost in a shuffle of contracts and strategic scorecards”.
But describing “development” as having a humanistic soul would be to many people in the Global South a contradiction in terms. That is not to say that many people who work in “development” are not decent, moral human beings genuinely interested in improving the welfare of others around the world. Nor is it to deny that the aid industry delivers crucial assistance that millions rely on to survive. ….more
