The aid sector is in a period of intense upheaval. The unprecedented cuts in overseas development aid and humanitarian assistance in 2024 and 2025 have reverberated through the system, resulting in significant staff redundancies and program closures. While aid continues to support hundreds of millions of people throughout the world, there have long been reflections on the sector being ‘broken’, unable to fulfil its promise of localised decision-making and community led responses. To realise lasting change, the aid sector must wrestle with its origins and challenge the institutions that comprise it to work differently.
Unpacking the aid system: laying the groundwork for transformation is the first paper in a series of publications summarising the outputs of the Future of Aid 2040: Pathways to Transformation study.
In this paper, the outputs of the first seminar consultation and survey are summarised through a Causal Layered Analysis (CLA). The report reveals hidden systemic drivers, prevailing worldviews, and deeply held narratives sustaining the current status quo, offering an essential diagnosis to shape a new Future of Aid.
To achieve true transformation, to reconstruct an aid sector where all see its foundations as a story of hope through collective action, uncorrupted by the us vs them dynamic and with sufficient resources to overcome the overwhelm, it is necessary to be honest about the underlying worldviews and motivations which have created the dynamics that we are seeking to alter.
The next publication will be the Future of Aid 2040 scenarios, which will be published in a foresight report in September 2025.
Learn more about the Future of Aid 2040 project.
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