2025 was a stress test for the aid system. Budgets shrank, climate shocks intensified, and political attacks on multilateralism became routine. Yet the best conversations this year didn’t just describe the damage; they showed where accountability, money, and power can still be moved.
These ten episodes of DevelopmentAid Dialogues are the ones to go back to if you want a clear, unvarnished picture of where development and humanitarian work is heading – and what might still be saved.
#1 US Aid Freeze: Immediate Effects of Trump’s Executive Order
Matthew Robinson, a seasoned specialist in development, humanitarian advocacy, and foreign policy, comments on Donald Trump’s critical decision to freeze U.S. foreign aid. The discussion focused on the magnitude of the cuts, anticipating an immediate impact on initiatives promoting disaster relief, education, health, and anti-corruption. Many of the discussed issues have proven to be true in the months that followed.
#2 UNOPS Rewires Aid Accountability: Tracking Scope 3 Emissions
Samantha Stratton-Short explains how UNOPS is dragging the hardest part of climate accountability into the light: the supply chain emissions nobody fully owns, but everyone contributes to. This episode shows what it means when a major UN implementer decides Scope 3 is no longer “somebody else’s problem.”
#3 Surviving US Stop Work Orders: Recovery Tactics and Legal Recourse
Following Donald Trump’s executive order on U.S. foreign aid 90-day-freeze, the USAID stop-work orders have left thousands of organizations struggling with the urgent need to continue essential development work, financial uncertainty, and compliance challenges, juggling compliance, financial survival, and the urgent need to continue essential projects.
In this episode, Katherine Gentic, an expert in USAID compliance and contract management, provided urgent and critical recommendations to USAID implementing partners.
#4 Raj M. Desai: Rethinking Development Finance in an Age of Shrinking Aid
Raj M. Desai, Professor of International Development at Georgetown University and Nonresident Senior Fellow at Brookings, dissects the politics behind shrinking aid budgets and the fantasy that blended finance can quietly fill the gap. Essential listening if you want to understand the fiscal and political weather shaping every project proposal you see.
#5 Artificial Intelligence and Telemedicine: Human Judgment in the Digital Era
Dr. Jan Niclas Strickling, a German board-certified consultant in cardiology and internal medicine, cuts through the AI hype to show where algorithms can safely support remote care – and where human judgment remains nonnegotiable. A grounded look at digital health for anyone tempted by “scalable” solutions in low-resource settings.
#6 Navigating the Aid Front Lines (with Sajeda Shawa)
Sajeda Shawa, Head of OCHA’s office in the UAE and a longtime humanitarian strategist, translates “coordination” into hard choices about which convoy moves, who negotiates access, and how staff cope with watching preventable deterioration. The episode brings the politics of frontline humanitarian work into sharp, very human focus.
#7 Transparency to the Bone: Rethinking Remote Aid (with Ina Bluemel)
Ina Bluemel questions how honest remote programmes really are about what they can see, verify, and guarantee, especially when access is thin and the pressure to “prove impact” is high. It’s an uncomfortable but necessary conversation for anyone signing off on monitoring from places they cannot safely visit.
#8 Beyond the Flames and the Heatwaves (with Robin Degron)
Robin Degron links fires and heatwaves around the Mediterranean to deeper governance failures and political denial in Europe and its neighborhood. Climate here is not a future risk but a shared, destabilizing present that aid and public policy still struggle to treat seriously.
#9 The Aid Localization Mirage (with Dr. Duncan Green)
Dr. Duncan Green, Professor in Practice at the London School of Economics, tests “localization” against budgets and decision-making, not just conference language. He names the gap between rhetoric and real powersharing, giving practitioners a sharper vocabulary for what they live every day.
#10 Abandonment at the Breaking Point (with Stephen Cornish)
Stephen Cornish, a veteran humanitarian and General Director within Médecins Sans Frontières, describes what “reprioritization” feels like from the other side: communities living through multiple rounds of scaled-down and exit. The episode forces a hard conversation about responsibility when donors quietly walk away.
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