Western nations demand more while offering less

The United Nations' 2026 Sustainable Development Goals Report, released on July 7, presents a sobering picture. Of the 139 measurable targets, only 36 percent are on track or showing moderate progress, while 15 percent have slid below their 2015 baselines. Escalating conflicts, climate change, sluggish growth, rising debt, and a record fall in official development assistance were the primary forces that slowed progress, with the world's most vulnerable communities paying the heaviest price.

The numbers paint a stark picture. According to the OECD, net official development assistance from Development Assistance Committee members plunged by 23.3 percent in 2025 — the largest annual drop on record — with the United States alone accounting for 70 percent of the decline. A further 6.9 percent contraction is projected for 2026, pushing development aid volumes to their lowest level since 2014. Several major donors have announced multiyear reductions in the future. Against this backdrop of unprecedented withdrawal, a narrative has emerged suggesting that a "post-aid era" has arrived, and that developing countries should embrace it as a step toward self-reliance.

This is a trap. After World War II, international development assistance has served as a vital global public good — funding health systems, responding to humanitarian emergencies, addressing displacement and climate change, and preventing local risks from cascading into global crises. When aid is reduced, shared risks increase for everyone. The "post-aid" story is not about liberation; it is a convenient pretext for wealthy nations to walk away from their obligations — that they promised since the 1970s to devote 0.7 percent of their GNI to foreign aid — just when needs are increasing.

Meanwhile, the UN estimates that the annual SDG financing gap has surpassed $4 trillion and continues to widen. Humanitarian funding has shrunk by nearly a third since 2023, reaching a decade low as 239 million people require life-saving assistance.

More troubling than the scale of this retreat is the transformation of what remains. In the past, donors who failed to meet their commitments at least offered explanations. Now, they are not only walking away but also recasting what remains as a commercial transaction. Developing countries are being told that accepting aid cuts is "for their own good", even as remaining engagements are restructured to serve the commercial, political and security interests of the donors.

In April this year, the US launched its "trade over aid" doctrine. Under the guise of "mutually beneficial private-sector partnerships" grounded in free-market principles, it demands pro-business market reforms from developing countries, downplays the role of aid, and reframes development cooperation as trade and investment on Washington's terms. Washington has put this doctrine into practice, signing bilateral agreements with 32 countries under its "America First" global health strategy. Zimbabwe, Ghana and Zambia have refused, citing concerns that range from data sovereignty infringements to clauses tying health assistance to preferential mineral access.

This bilateral retreat by the US is matched by a systematic withdrawal from the multilateral system. The US has exited institutions that span climate change, global health, human rights, development assistance and other key domains of global governance — most prominently the World Health Organization, the Paris Agreement and UN Women. When national self-interest becomes the guiding principle, development cooperation loses its purpose and turns into a transaction disguised as partnership.

This is the fundamental flaw of the "post-aid" narrative. It presents the collapse of assistance as a natural path to self-reliance, but obscures the dismantling of the very instruments that could make self-reliance possible. What must be challenged is not aid itself, but "aid without development" — resources that never lead to lasting progress.

The human cost is clear. In Africa, a global public health emergency caused by an Ebola outbreak required $1.4 billion, the amount initially estimated. But by mid-June, only 13 percent of the pledged funds had materialized, and the Africa CDC warned of imminent collapse. In stark contrast, South-South cooperation has delivered swift, practical solidarity: China has dispatched three medical expert teams to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the latest arriving in Kinshasa on Aug 1 to reinforce ongoing efforts alongside local authorities, the WHO and the Africa CDC.

This contrast reflects a broader philosophy. Across the Global South, a different model of partnership is taking shape — pragmatic, needs-based, and rooted in shared development experience. The benchmark is not the most expensive or technologically advanced option, but what is most suitable, affordable and adaptable to local conditions.

This is a collective strength of the Global South — a growing capacity to support one another not as donors and recipients in the traditional sense, but as partners navigating shared challenges.

At a time when traditional donors are retreating, China's 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) signals a clear commitment to increasing foreign aid and providing more international public goods.

Equally instructive is the experience of many emerging economies as former aid recipients: external resources, when integrated into nationally owned plans and priorities, can strengthen rather than undermine sovereignty. This history offers a credible alternative to the false choice between dependency and abandonment.

The path forward requires three shifts. First, the international community must reject the "post-aid" narrative for what it is — a self-serving justification for disengagement — and insist on better aid: demand-driven, respectful of national ownership, and focused on building lasting capacity.

Second, the diversity of development actors should be treated as an asset. Different partners bring different strengths; the challenge is coordination around common goals. Emerging technologies offer new tools to improve efficiency and targeting. The World Bank's 2026 World Development Report, released on Aug 4, finds that AI could help developing countries achieve in a decade what might otherwise take a century. But it also warns that without proactive investment in digital infrastructure and skills, the same technology risks widening the gap between and within nations.

Third, the UN must reclaim its anchoring role by moving beyond forums to make developing countries' concrete needs visible, produce the public goods — norms, standards, knowledge — that build confidence, offer networks and practical solutions tailored to diverse country contexts, and translate consensus into coordinated action.

We are not entering a "post-aid era", but an era of cascading crises that demands better aid that is a genuine global public good. Choosing solidarity over selfishness is the only path to a just, resilient and genuinely shared future.

The author is a senior research fellow at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation.

The views don't necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

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