Closing or shifting funding, organizational changes, geopolitical turbulence – all of these depict the international development sector, which has become highly unpredictable, especially after 1 July 2025 – the day USAID closed.
The shutdown of the agency that managed the largest aid budget in the world led to the loss of an estimated 258,000 jobs across the international development sector, along with a serious cut in foreign aid. Several other major donors also subsequently reduced their aid budgets.
Nevertheless, multilateral development institutions continue to search for experts, and for thousands of consultants and development experts around the world, one platform has become a reliable source of good news and opportunities: DevelopmentAid.org.
In 2025 alone, the DevelopmentAid platform published 21,468 consultancy assignments for individuals and advertised 106,838 jobs for experts worldwide, connecting professionals to opportunities across the international development sector.
In this article, we reveal the stories of two aid professionals who have made the difficult journey from losing a job to a new workplace and how DevelopmentAid helped them to achieve this.
Career opportunities in international development
Last year, across the sector, organizations downsized, contracts evaporated, and thousands of professionals were left navigating a job market that experts now describe as the most competitive in recent memory.
And yet, some professionals managed to survive and even progress in their field, and this wasn’t all about luck. In fact, having access to the right opportunities, at the right moment, and with the right tools to act on them is what helped them.
From crisis to career leap: the story of Boubacar Sayon Mansaré
When USAID stopped work orders, it sent shockwaves through the international development community in 2025, leaving many professionals finding themselves at a crossroads. Boubacar Sayon Mansaré was one of them when the work he had built his career around came to an abrupt halt.
Rather than do nothing, Boubacar acted – he discovered the DevelopmentAid platform, became a member, and began to explore the opportunities it presents on a daily basis. In just a short time, he had landed a new role only to soon advance to a more senior one.
At a moment in time when possibilities in the field were becoming scarce, Boubacar used the platform where he could find new jobs and continue to build his career in international development.
Boubacar remains a DevelopmentAid member, and his story is a reminder that in the development sector, timing matters enormously, and those who use the right tools at the right time have more chances of succeeding and moving forward.
Boubacar’s story is not unique. Meet Pierre Varly.
Landing a UNICEF contract through smart platform use
Pierre Varly is an experienced consultant who knows the development sector well. For him, it is crucial to be aware of what’s happening within the sector and to find the right opportunities.
The payoff extended beyond his own career:
Pierre took advantage of DevelopmentAid’s career coaching sessions, which walked him through the platform’s full suite of features, ranging from CV revision and tailoring to CV broadcasting, which puts an expert’s profile in front of relevant hiring organizations.
CV Broadcast increases the chances of being noticed by recruiters and hiring organizations, allowing opportunities to come to you rather than relying solely on submitting applications.
What do these two stories have in common?
Both Boubacar and Pierre faced the same fundamental challenge that every development professional encounters at some point: finding the right opportunity, at the right moment, in a sector where the level of competition is high and where finding the necessary insights is challenging due to their widespread nature.
That being the case, DevelopmentAid’s Professional membership helps you to directly address these issues.
While free access to the platform allows you to benefit from a glimpse of what’s available, a paid membership unlocks the full picture, including complete tender listings, funding alerts personalized to your areas of specialization and target countries, shortlisted and awarded contractor data, CV broadcasting to become visible to the or ganizations that matter, and one-on-one career advisory support to sharpen the way you present yourself.
A paid membership allows members to spend less time searching and more time pursuing opportunities that match their expertise and goals.
Is it time to invest in your career?
For many professionals, having a DevelopmentAid membership goes beyond benefitting from various tools and opportunities – it helps them to gain greater visibility, improve their chances of success when applying, and remain competitive in a sector that boasts a high level of competition.
Multilateral organizations still rely on independent experts to assist in planning and executing development initiatives.
In one of our recent articles, we revealed that the 10 largest organizations on our platform published more than 20,000 consulting assignments for individuals in 2025. The top three were:
- World Bank – 5,413 assignments
- Asian Development Bank – 4,564 assignments
- United Nations Development Programme – 4,477 assignments
Find out more about these and other organizations at: Top 10 organizations engaging individual consultants in 2025
Boubacar and Pierre are examples of what becomes possible when a professional starts to use a platform that has been built specifically for the development sector.
If you are currently a free DevelopmentAid member and you already know how the platform works, now is exactly the right time to discover and make use of all that it offers.
