This article appears in the Fall 2025 print issue: The End of Development. Read more from the issue.

This article appears in the Fall 2025 issue of Foreign Policy. Subscribe now to read the full issue and support our journalism.

In just nine months, the Trump administration has laid waste to the development landscape, dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and slashing nearly the entire U.S. foreign aid budget. This has posed a problem for nongovernmental organizations working on development the world over, derailing decades of work to increase access to health, food, education, and better governance. The impact is disproportionately felt across the global south, where these cuts will inevitably erode institutional knowledge and disrupt development trajectories.

But while the U.S. government’s actions have posed the biggest and most unexpected challenge for these groups, the reality is that the heyday of NGO influence was already long over. NGO revenue streams have dried up—and not just from the United States. France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom had already begun their aid retreat before U.S. President Donald Trump took office a second time. In 2020, the U.K. effectively closed its equivalent of USAID, the Department for International Development, by merging it with the Foreign Office. Foreign aid dropped by about $6 billion after the merger, a decline expected to hit $11 billion by 2027.

In just nine months, the Trump administration has laid waste to the development landscape, dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and slashing nearly the entire U.S. foreign aid budget. This has posed a problem for nongovernmental organizations working on development the world over, derailing decades of work to increase access to health, food, education, and better governance. The impact is disproportionately felt across the global south, where these cuts will inevitably erode institutional knowledge and disrupt development trajectories.

But while the U.S. government’s actions have posed the biggest and most unexpected challenge for these groups, the reality is that the heyday of NGO influence was already long over. NGO revenue streams have dried up—and not just from the United States. France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom had already begun their aid retreat before U.S. President Donald Trump took office a second time. In 2020, the U.K. effectively closed its equivalent of USAID, the Department for International Development, by merging it with the Foreign Office. Foreign aid dropped by about $6 billion after the merger, a decline expected to hit $11 billion by 2027.

Similar trends are visible across Western Europe. Sweden, which previously was one of the top countries that provided the most development aid as a percentage of gross national income, more than halved its overseas aid budget in 2023. In Germany, overseas development assistance fell by over 10 percent from 2023 to 2024, with more cuts projected as the country prioritizes defense spending. Similarly, in 2025, France reduced its development aid budget by almost 40 percent, representing a reduction of nearly 2.3 billion euros (about $2.6 billion). The Dutch government will cut 2.4 billion euros ($2.8 billion) from its development aid budget by 2027, while Belgium has announced a 25 percent reduction in aid funding over the next five years.

In the face of fewer democratic constraints, governments are also eroding the norms that supported NGOs for much of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Concurrently, global democratic recession and authoritarian resurgence have created a troubling environment for NGOs. In the face of fewer democratic constraints, these governments are also eroding the norms that supported these groups for much of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

As a result of these trends in tandem, many development NGOs have had to abruptly close programs and lay off staff. In Ethiopia, South Africa, and Uganda, many NGOs working on providing HIV/AIDS treatment,........

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