In Gabriel Garcea Marquez’s ‘Chronicle of a Death Foretold’, a whole town knows a man is going to be killed. Everyone sees the signs. No one acts. And yet, when it happens, they all pretend to be shocked. Something eerily similar has unfolded in Pakistan’s development landscape.

The donor has left the room – or has been packing up since 2020. And we’ve been pretending not to notice.

In 2025, after decades of development aid, democracy grants, gender equality funds and governance-strengthening missions, the global development architecture has crumbled under the weight of shifting geopolitics and regional priorities.

With the US folding up its civilian aid arm, USAID, and a Republican administration halting most foreign assistance, European donors, caught between economic slowdowns, refugee crises, climate catastrophes and war fatigue on the Eastern front, are slashing budgets across governance, gender, and institutional support. In the Middle East, destruction has refocused priorities towards immediate security and humanitarian responses. There is little appetite left for long-term democratic strengthening elsewhere.

Pakistan, for its part, remains suspended between crisis and recovery. It leans heavily on IMF lifelines while navigating fragile political transitions and sluggish economic restructuring. But what’s missing in most policy circles is a sober assessment of what this global aid drawdown means for us financially and structurally. Because, for all the pilots, projects and frameworks, development........

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