The era of aid as the backbone of global development is quietly being dismantled, according to George Ingram of the Brookings Institution.
Speaking during DevelopmentAid’s inaugural Ask Me Anything session, From Aid to Trade: What the U.S. Strategic Pivot Means for Development Actors in 2026, Ingram, a veteran foreign affairs policymaker, laid out a stark reality: the world is moving away from grant-based assistance towards a more transactional model driven by trade, investment, and geopolitical self-interest.
The consequences, he warned, are already being felt, from shrinking humanitarian budgets to a widening divide in how countries engage with development partners.
About DevelopmentAid’s Ask Me Anything sessions
That conversation formed part of a one-hour session in DevelopmentAid’s newly launched Ask Me Anything – Ask the Expert (AMA) series, an interactive format designed to give practitioners direct, unfiltered access to some of the most experienced voices in international development.
DevelopmentAid’s AMA model is shaped entirely by its audience. Questions are submitted in advance by professionals working across the international development sector, from NGO leaders to consultants and procurement specialists, turning each session into a real-time reflection of the pressures facing the field. There are no slide decks or scripted remarks. Instead, the focus is on candid and actionable responses grounded in decades of experience.
In practice, it offers something rare: time with an expert who understands the system from the inside and the freedom to ask what matters most.
The inaugural session, featuring George Ingram, set the bar high. But it was also in line with our commitment to give development professionals not only access to data, job listings, consultancies, and tenders, but also the expertise that helps them to make better decisions in a rapidly shifting landscape.
A reordering of the development landscape
What emerged from the first session was that there has not been a single policy shift but a broader reordering of the development landscape.
Ingram pointed to the structural changes that extend far beyond any one administration. The global system, he argued, is becoming increasingly fragmented, split between traditional donors, emerging powers, and private actors, each pursuing their own strategic interests. Aid flows are declining, while countries in the Global South are asserting greater control over their own development paths.
When asked whether the shift away from aid was temporary or permanent, his answer was unequivocal:
“We’ve likely seen the heyday of official development assistance dominated by a unified Western approach.”
The consequences have been immediate. Funding is already tilting towards commercially viable sectors such as energy, infrastructure, and digital systems, areas that are aligned as much with supply chains as they are with development priorities. He described a pivot toward market-based finance that risks sidelining health, education, and civil society.
For organizations on the ground, the pressure is acute. NGOs, he suggested, will need to entirely rethink their role, moving from being implementers to facilitators, diversifying funding, and forming deeper partnerships with both local actors and the private sector. It is a shift that is easier to describe than to execute.
“It’s a lot harder and more painful for them to do it,” he acknowledged.
For many working in the sector, these are not abstract debates. They shape funding pipelines, inform project design, and determine where the next opportunity, or gap, will appear. It is precisely this gap between high-level analysis and the on-the-ground reality that the AMA sessions are designed to address.
Why attend the next AMA-Ask the expert session?
The development sector is navigating one of its most disorienting moments in decades. And that uncertainty does not affect everyone in the same way. For an NGO director, it means rethinking funding models. For a procurement specialist, it means watching tender pipelines shift overnight. For an independent consultant, it means figuring out which skills still hold and where the next assignment will come from.
That is precisely the audience the Ask Me Anything series is built for. It gives you a seat at the table (everyone is free to attend the session – with or without a DevelopmentAid member account) and the chance to put your own questions to the people who understand this landscape from the inside.
DevelopmentAid membership already gives you the tools to excel your career: access to thousands of job opportunities and consulting assignments daily, tender and grant alerts, salary benchmarks, and CV services that put you in front of the right organizations.
In addition to these benefits, the AMA sessions add something more – the strategic context behind the numbers. The kind of thinking that helps you to decide not just where to apply, but also how to position yourself in a landscape that is being redrawn in real time.
The next Ask Me Anything session will be announced soon. You can attend the session with or without a DevelopmentAid member profile (although we encourage you to create one, as it only takes a couple of minutes).
If the first conversation made anything clear, it is this. Some of the most important discussions shaping the future of development are no longer happening in reports or conference halls. They are happening in rooms like this.
The question is whether you will be there too.
The full recording of the George Ingram AMA session (as well as other thematic webinars on DevelopmentAid), including his unfiltered assessment of which sectors will thrive under the new regime, emerging public-private partnership opportunities, and what he described as the consulting paradox created by the USAID closure, is available exclusively to DevelopmentAid premium members.
Subscribe to DevelopmentAid weekly News Digest or become a member to receive regular updates on the next AMA – Ask the expert session.
