KATHMANDU – As the 2026 World Economic Forum (WEF) convenes in Davos, a troubling silence regarding the future of global development echoes through the halls of power. Despite a landscape fractured by "resource imperialism," extreme weather, and historic government aid cuts, the traditional pillars of international development have been largely relegated to the periphery of this year’s summit. While the forum’s official theme focuses on a "Spirit of Dialogue," experts warn that the public gaze has shifted away from the world’s most vulnerable regions at a critical juncture.
The international aid sector is currently grappling with a "perfect storm" of challenges that receive little airtime on the Davos main stage. For the first time in decades, the four largest global donors—the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France—have simultaneously slashed their foreign assistance budgets. The U.S. has undergone a dramatic restructuring, including the 2025 closure of USAID and its transfer to the State Department, while the UK continues to reduce its spending toward 0.3% of GNI. These retrenchments, combined with China’s expanding geopolitical reach and the increasing impacts of extreme weather, are fundamentally reshaping the aid landscape as we enter 2026.
Amidst this uncertainty, World Neighbors, an international NGO entering its 75th year, offers a resilient blueprint for survival. Headquartered in Oklahoma City with a key office in Washington, D.C., the organization has operated almost exclusively on private funding for decades—a model that many other NGOs are now scrambling to emulate as public funds dry up. Dr. Kate Schecter, CEO of World Neighbors, recently returned from the Bihar and Uttar Pradesh regions of India, where she observed thriving economic development projects built not on government mandates, but on local skills and private donor support.
The "private-first" model championed by World Neighbors emphasizes community-based savings and credit groups, allowing isolated villages to move away from dependency on international grants. Their approach focuses on long-term climate resilience and locally led adaptations to weather extremes, maintaining stable operations in 14 low-income countries, including Nepal, Haiti, Kenya, and Mali. As the Davos forum concludes, the message from the field remains clear: international development cannot afford to be an afterthought. Without a concerted effort to address resource gaps and climate impacts in the Global South, the divide between high-level discussions and on-the-ground reality will only continue to widen.
