Reimagining Aid
A large proportion of aid money ends up benefiting people and institutions of the Global North rather than the Global South. The aid funds serve the agendas of the rich donors and much of the money does not even reach its intended beneficiaries. Typically, more aid funds end up in the coffers of INGOs than to institutions in the countries to which the aid is supposedly ‘allocated.’ Moreover, as donors have moved toward funding indigenous in-country organizations, the INGOs have frequently set up local their NGO subsidiaries to be better positioned to continue receiving these funds. Instead of providing direct funds to capable ministries of health – who do the bulk of the work, funds often go to INGOs to implement donor-driven health programs that often fail to align with or meet the health needs of global communities.
May 7, 2025
Shifting power to transform the development paradigm
Obinna Onyekwena reminds us, in his recent opinion piece in Development today, that aid to the Global South has functioned as a mechanism of control, influence, and outsourced profit, entrenching asymmetries of power under the guise of assistance. He also notes, that following the recent aid cuts “it is not the recipients who express the…
April 8, 2025
Global Health Catastrophe from 2025 U.S. Foreign Budget Freeze
The Trump administration’s 90-day freeze in January-March 2025 on U.S. foreign aid has blocked billions of dollars in funding for global health initiatives, including contraceptives, climate justice, HIV, and TB. The U.S. allocated $63.1 billion for foreign assistance in Fiscal Year 2024, with $10.5 billion for humanitarian aid and $4.1 billion for global health efforts….
March 21, 2025
Re-imagining foreign aid
Farah Stockman in her NY Times editorial decries the chaos and devastation from cuts in US foreign aid, but also calls for re-imagining a foreign aid that addresses serious flaws inherent in the current forms of aid. We know that local groups (especially under-funded government health systems) are far more cost-effective and attuned to what…
May 28, 2024
Wealthy Countries Profiting from Climate Funding
A recent Reuters investigation reveals that countries like Japan, France, Germany, and the United States are reaping billions in economic rewards from a global program meant to help low- and middle-income countries combat climate change. The grants and loans often come with high interest rates or binding conditions, requiring recipients to hire companies from the…
January 30, 2024
USAID’s $9.5B supply chain vision unraveled at the expense of lives worldwide and billions of dollars wasted
In 2015, USAID unveiled the largest contract in its history, aimed at transforming health supply chains in lower-income countries. It has not gone according to plan. In 2017, it was clear the project was failing. During its worst quarter, only 7% of its shipments arrived at their destinations on time and in full. Project leaders scrambled as multiple…
January 27, 2024
Tim Schwab & “The Bill Gates Problem” Town Hall Seattle Podcast
Tim Schwab, author of the recently published “The Bill Gates Problem: Reckoning with the myth of the good billionaire,” headlined a Seattle Town Hall event in December 2024 sponsored by the Community Alliance for Global Justice. In this podcast of the event, Tim explains how Bill Gates’ uses his foundation as a vehicle for unaccountable…
May 15, 2023
[VIDEO] “Universities… laundromats for very wealthy people”: Anand Giridhardas
Author of book Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World Anand Giridharadas spoke to University of Washington Department of Global Health about his book. Below is an abridged version of the conversation. Answers have been edited for length and clarity. We encourage you to watch the entire recording of his conversation with…
September 13, 2022
[BOOKS] on Phantom Aid
“Phantom Aid” refers to the phenomenon where foreign aid is promised but not effectively delivered, often due to corruption, mismanagement, or other systemic issues. Here are recommended books to explore the topic more: “The White Man’s Burden: Historical Origins of Racism in the United States” by Winthrop D. Jordan (1974) This seminal work offers…
March 9, 2022
Health aid vs health needs: Mismatch created by donor ‘experts’ & INGOs
Baccini, Heinzel and Koenig-Archibugi demonstrate that peer influences in the networks of Global North advocates and ‘experts’ drives global health priorities that are frequently misaligned with the needs of low income country aid recipients. Their analysis attempts to quantify the degree of mismatch over time and by donor country. They found that networks of professionals…
January 25, 2022
[VIDEO] Phantom Aid: Money allocated to countries that ends up funding INGOs
International NGOs are expensive. They are usually run from their headquarters in expensive cities in high income countries like Washington DC, New York, Boston or Seattle, where the costs are very high compared to low-income countries. They charge overhead and indirect costs for their offices and overall organizational administration which are not related to the…
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