The Crises Vying for Dwindling Foreign Aid

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1:29Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts. Radio. News. The Trump administration's recent cuts to humanitarian work overseas stands out for their size and scope, but they don't stand alone. Even before the start of President Trump's second term, international aid from developed nations was on the decline. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reported that in 2024, international aid was down roughly 7%. And the OECD estimates that the dismantling of USAID and other changes made by the Trump White House will contribute to another drop in international aid in 2025 by as much as 17%. An organization that's seen the impact of that decline up close is the International Crisis Group.

2:20For the last 30 years, ICG has been working to prevent war and conflict and to resolve it wherever it's happening. It's an organization that is around about 150 with our staff throughout the world. Comfort Arrow is the International Crisis Group's president and CEO. So you'll find colleagues based as far as Caracas, right through to Taipei, from as high up as Ukraine, right down to South Africa as well. It is very much an in-country operation. ICG is an independent organization that relies on staff working on the ground around the globe to inform its policy recommendations. The methodology of Crisis Group is that you speak to all sides.

3:04It's very vital in shaping the policy options, in defining the way forward, that you've captured the views of all the actors that are crucial to the conflict, from those who are fighting, to those who are the victims, to those who are influential as well. At the start of the year, International Crisis Group released a list of the 10 conflicts it's watching. The wars in Ukraine and Gaza are on there. So are the conflicts in Myanmar and Sudan. ICG also highlighted relationships where tensions have been escalating, like the relationship between the U.S. and China and the U.S. and Mexico. Arrow says that what this signals is that we are in a new and more dangerous age.

3:46Not only is it perilous, but it is chapter-defining. We are literally closing down a period where liberal international order was very much the area in which crisis group was born in. The institutions, the norms, the principles that shaped our birth are all crumbling. Some of them are disappearing pretty fast. Institutions are breaking. So for me, this is more than a perilous moment. a chapter is firmly being shut. And it's quite uncertain what we're going to be birthing them into the future. I'm David Gura, and this is The Big Take from Bloomberg News. Today on the show, Comfort Arrow, the president and CEO of the International Crisis Group, on how a new era of conflict is intersecting with a rise in nationalism and populism and the global competition for attention and resources.

4:47Comfort Arrow has been working in international crisis response for decades. And I wanted to know, as she tracks conflicts all over the world, what variables they have in common? I mean, you know, Crisis Group, we're very careful to try and provide a blanket narrative to explain the different walls that we're looking at. I think that's one of the reasons why Crisis Group was created, to make sure that you are looking at the specific context of each conflict as well. But if you're asking me to find a through line in all of this, from Venezuela to Haiti, to the Sahel, to the Horn, to Myanmar, it's hard to ignore power.

5:25And the politics, local, regional, at the core of all these conflicts as well, and territorial grab is now back in vogue. as well. So I think that's also another trend line that we're seeing and that the guardrails that would often define how states cooperate with one another, that is also on the verge of collapse as well. When you look at all the conflicts that are taking place, there are some that do attract more interest and attention. And I wonder how much that preoccupies you. What does get the world's attention and what doesn't? The heart of the mission for Crisis Group when its founders created it was that it wasn't going to be an organisation that just focused on the headline conflicts, the ones that were at the top of mind for decision makers and the ones that the media latched onto.

6:16it was going to be an organisation that focused on off-the-radar forgotten, those that are often, that don't capture the hearts and minds. And that is a reminder of the pressure on crisis group as well, that our job is to make sure that those conflicts that don't quite make the cut for the decision-making, for the policy makers who have limited capacity, limited bandwidth, that you remind them. And I think what concerns me more and more today is not that these are forgotten conflicts, but they're deprioritised. So good example, you know, Ukraine was top of mind since the invasion by Russia in 2022.

6:54Now fast forward to the 7th of October, and there seemed to be a tussle between who was going to grab the attention, Ukraine or what was happening in Gaza. And now today you add that into the mix is Sudan. Now, when you look at the statistics on Sudan, it is today the worst humanitarian crisis. It is competing for attention as well. So it is a competition for who gains the attention, not just by international actors, but even by regional powers, even the regions themselves. Regional leaders, legionals, hegemons, those who are influential that are close to the region, they struggle because they're not only dealing with the region, but also what is different 30 years ago for crisis groups is that today, all those key actors that you would depend on to help shape the outcome of a conflict themselves are in crisis.

7:43So I think of Nigeria, for example. I think of South Africa, for example. I think of Brazil, for example. I think of India and China. And they all have different levels of crises that they're having to cope with, including those on their borders as well. So it's a real competition for bandwidth and capacity to address these issues. Up next, how that competition for a shrinking pool of resources is playing out on the ground.

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10:41On his first day back in office, President Trump imposed a 90-day pause on all U.S. foreign aid. In March, his administration dismantled the U.S. Agency of International Development, slashing tens of billions of dollars in assistance to developing nations. Those cuts have been contested in court. Earlier this month, a U.S. appeals court ruled the White House can cut foreign assistance funds approved by Congress for this year. I asked Comfort Arrow, the president and CEO of the International Crisis Group, about the effects of those changes in the places where her organization works. We're still trying to assess the impact, but I think there are various levels of impact.

11:21One is the immediate misery and the uncertainty about where the next money was going to come from in terms of aid. Because while the focus has been on US aid, we've got to not forget the overall context of the fate of international aid. So in Europe, for example, Europe was already clawing back its aid money. France, for example, 18 % cuts in its own aid budget. Germany itself, 10.7%. Last year, 2024, there was already a decline, 7.1 % decline already in international aid. This year, we're looking at 17%. So there is a global decline in international aid. And to suddenly see that crumble overnight has a shocking effect.

12:03One thing Arrow mourns is the loss of expertise, the knowledge and skills at USAID and other aid agencies. Important staff on the ground collecting the data. They have a clear sense of where assistance is needed. They're seeing the refugee flows. They understand what's happening in the country. and they're able to assess and prioritize where those needs are. So that it happened so fast, so quickly, I think is what shocked a number of people. It begs the question who will fill that vacuum that you're describing and bearing in mind what you just said, which is it's early days yet and everyone's still trying to assess what the impact is going to be.

12:39Are you seeing other states, other groups assume some of that responsibility or see that as advantageous for them to do? Look, let me say two things. Before answering your question, I mean, look, it's been devastating. It's been a shock. And when you think about the loss of significant aid, when I think about the civil society groupings, very local civil society groupings in Sudan, and the work that they were doing, how they quickly converted themselves to provide kitchen soups, to provide humanitarian aid where international agencies couldn't get through. when I think about a support that's been given by various actors in Gaza, when I just think about the global scale of this.

13:20At the same time, I think there are a group of people who have been watching the international aid industry, and I use that word very carefully, and have been concerned about inefficiencies, about overbloatedness, about the overlap, the duplicative nature of some of the UN agencies, for example. So there was a number of concerns and, of course, a big debate about reform as well. So I hope that what emerges in the next few years is a more resilient architecture that really is able to work with both local and regional actors as well. You travel a lot and recently went to Bangladesh. I am here at Cox's Bazaar in the southern eastern tip of Bangladesh on the border of Myanmar to focus on the world's largest refugee camp, housing 1.2 million Rohingyas who fled from Myanmar.

14:18Could you describe what it looks like and maybe more than that, sort of what's happening there, what you saw and why it's so important? Yeah. And it wasn't until I landed in Cox's Bazaar that I finally heard what they'd been saying to me, which was that this was the largest refugee camp in the world. I was shocked by that. The vastness of it? Yes, the vastness, but to be told that it was the largest refugee camp as well. Because, you know, having worked in Africa for many years, and also lived in Nairobi, which was also the home of the largest refugee camp, because of Somalia, this was a shock to me as well.

14:56So even for me, a crisis group where we spend a great deal of our time warning international actors and thinking through, it was a reminder to me that, you know, that out of the sort of the usual places that is often in the headlines in terms of humanitarian displacement, refugee crisis, in terms of humanitarian catastrophe, it was a reminder to me as well. and I had the opportunity to visit the camp itself. I was there at a time where the debate was high about the future funding for the camp. I was there also at the time when Bangladesh, of course, is going through its own transition. In August of 2024, Bangladesh's Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, was ousted after 15 years in power.

15:43The country is currently being led by an interim government And the next national elections are scheduled for February 2026. The question was how Bangladesh was going to manage its transition and also deal with the Rohingya crisis that's on the border. So it was a moment to understand Bangladesh's own role, the fate of the UN that is going through a liquidation crisis of its own, regardless of what's happened to USAID. but also watching the mushrooming of all these various non-state actors in Myanmar who have been able to resist the junta. Since a 2021 coup, a military junta has ruled Myanmar.

16:22But hundreds of armed groups within the country have resisted, carving out autonomous pockets. Effectively states within a state governing different parts of their society, but also in the midst of that, it's just the untold misery that you don't hear in the headlines. the sexual violations, the rape, the way in which young men are recruited, and the sustainability of the war in these refugee camps as well. So it was a tsunami of issues that you could see. You could tell the story of Myanmar just by being in that camp. Just listening to the voices was quite devastating as well. I just want to wrap up by asking you about something you said at the top, and that is that you've seen deficit of empathy globally.

17:06Are you optimistic that will return? I think for us to get back to that level of empathy, organizations like Crisis Group are going to be crucial in explaining why it matters, why you should care about the crises, not just the Gazas and the Ukrainians, which have a sort of larger international peace and security, but for humanity's sake as well. So I worry that it's going to be hard to regain that. I also say 30 years ago, liberal international order, the interventionist impulse that you saw for a number of Western countries, they're not necessarily on the front line in the way that there are other actors that are involved as well.

17:51But even journalists are facing a precarious moment in their ability to get access. They're often blocked from being able to bring those stories to you as well. So I think even getting journalists to be able to do their work effectively, that's going to be crucial to the empathy. But societies themselves, societies that you'd often turn to for assistance, for aid, for support, are also going through their own crises as well. Some of these countries themselves require that aid to be turned inwards as well. You know, you've got the poverty in parts of the countries that we would often turn to for assistance.

18:29I mean, rich, advanced societies, they're going through different levels of crises, migration, populism, a cost of living crisis, deficit crisis as well. more than any other time, it's very clear to me that there is now an overlap between the domestic and international. You have to be able to explain to your domestic constituency why it matters for you to be concerned about the fate of other civilians caught in crises elsewhere. I imagine someone in your position could be tempted to despair, looking at all that's happening around the world. And how do you forestall that from happening? What gives you grounds for optimism as you, again, survey the whole world and how many conflicts are taking place all over it?

19:12Because I think in the end of the day, and it is the essence of Crisis Group, that in every crisis there's a window of opportunity. The job of Crisis Group is to latch onto those windows and all the door and keep that door open. Keep it open and maybe widen it as well. and that's what keeps me hopeful because it's very easy to despair and that's sense of fatalism and you can't afford to have that and also just watching my colleagues as well and it's a privilege to wake up every morning to 150 different people providing you with information and not just information but at the end of every piece of information what they see is the possibilities and just the creativeness as well And in the moment of despair and anxiety that you have people who are willing to think through creatively what's possible, I don't have the right, therefore, to despair, basically, as well.

20:24you'd like this episode. Make sure to follow and review The Big Take wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps people find the show. Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow.

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