By Tafadzwa Munyaka
HARARE, Jul 24 2025 – In recent years, major international donors such as the European Union (EU), the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), USAID, and other bilaterals (such as BMZ, Sida, the Netherlands among others) have significantly reduced development funding to global majority countries.

These shifts are occurring in the midst of rhetorical commitments to localization and ‘shifting the power’ to local civil society organizations. This article looks at the paradox of decreasing official development assistance (ODA) alongside the growing emphasis on localization.

It explores the rise of remittances as an alternative flow of capital, asking whether this signals a structural transformation in global development finance or reinforces already existing inequalities.

The Grand Bargain committed donors and aid organizations to channel 25% of funding to local actors by 2020, a target that remains unmet five years past the initial deadline. In practice, only 1.2% of total humanitarian funding went directly to local organizations in 2022

Drawing on academic literature, donor trend analyses, and policy discourse, this article argues that while localization remains a compelling imperative, the reduction in traditional aid risks hollowing out the resourcing base necessary to realise it meaningfully.

The international development sector is witnessing a contradictory moment. On one hand, the calls for localization – the transfer of resources, decision-making power, and leadership to local actors – have grown louder, particularly after the Grand Bargain of 2016 and more recently through decolonizing aid discourses.

On the other hand, bilateral and multilateral donors that once underwrote the bulk of development financing are retrenching, citing domestic fiscal constraints, geopolitical realignments, and prioritization of emergency spending.

The withdrawal or scaling down of funding by agencies like USAID (in certain regions), FCDO, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Germany’s BMZ raises critical questions about the future of development finance and the feasibility of locally-led development.

Here, I look at these shifts through a power-sensitive lens, exploring whether the decrease in ODA and the increase in remittances and private flows mark a reordering of global development relations.

1. The decline in traditional donor funding

Traditional donors, particularly from the OECD (DAC), have been reducing long-term development assistance. FCDO has slashed aid to many African countries since 2020, citing Brexit-related restructuring and domestic budget pressures.

The Netherlands announced in 2023 it would refocus its development cooperation on fewer thematic and geographic areas, withdrawing from several African partnerships. USAID has signalled a shift toward more geopolitical objectives under the Indo-Pacific strategy, with programs in Sub-Saharan Africa quietly closing or transitioning to local ownership with fewer resources.

Data from the OECD (2024) indicates that while ODA rose nominally in 2023 (USD 223.7 billion), the increase was largely due to in-donor refugee costs and Ukraine-related support – not sustainable investments in development programming. Long-term, country-programmed ODA has either stagnated or declined in many contexts.

2. Localization: rhetoric vs. resourcing

The localization agenda broadly defined as empowering local actors to lead humanitarian and development efforts remains a policy priority in theory. The Grand Bargain committed donors and aid organizations to channel 25% of funding to local actors by 2020, a target that remains unmet five years past the initial deadline. In practice, only 1.2% of total humanitarian funding went directly to local organizations in 2022.

This discrepancy between rhetoric and resourcing reveals the structural inertia of the international aid system. Large INGOs and UN agencies continue to dominate funding channels due to perceived capacities, fiduciary standards, and donor risk aversion. The result is what Featherstone (2021) calls “localization without power” – where local actors are asked to lead without the corresponding control over financial or strategic resources.

Yet the rhetoric of localization often conceals the lack of structural commitment to resource redistribution. Donors have increasingly placed the burden of localization on intermediaries or local partners without adjusting funding mechanisms to support this transition.

Many local organizations remain trapped in subcontracting arrangements, where they are implementers of externally designed projects, with little influence over priorities, timelines, or metrics of success. This reflects what some scholars have termed the “isomorphic mimicry” of localization – adopting the language of power shift without ceding actual power.

In the absence of core, flexible and multi-year financing, localization becomes performative. Donors must move beyond tokenistic inclusion of local actors in funding chains and instead dismantle the bureaucratic and compliance-heavy models that prevent equitable access to funding. Without financial restructuring, localization risks becoming a vehicle for austerity – a means of exiting aid rather than transforming it.

3. Remittances: a parallel flow?

Remittances to low- and middle-income countries reached an estimated USD669 billion in 2023, up from USD 647 billion in 2022. In countries like Zimbabwe, Nigeria, and Nepal, remittances exceed the value of total ODA, becoming critical for household consumption, healthcare, and education. While remittances are typically private, unprogrammed funds, their increasing scale raises questions about their developmental potential.

Some scholars (Kapur, 2005; Clemens & McKenzie, 2018) argue that remittances offer a more direct, accountable, and less bureaucratic form of development finance. Others warn that remittances reinforce neoliberal withdrawal of the state, transferring responsibility for public services to the diaspora.

Unlike ODA, remittances do not fund systemic change, advocacy, or civic engagement – areas where donor aid is often essential. Thus, the rise of remittances, while cushioning households, does not replace the strategic role of public development financing in promoting rights-based, transformative change.

4. Implications for local organizations and civic space

The contraction of traditional donor funding, especially in civic space, women’s rights, and environmental justice programming, for example, is creating funding vacuums for local organizations.

Simultaneously, the ante is being upped on questions relating to the value-add of intermediary organizations, most of them INGOs on the efficacy of their role when funding can be directed to local NGOs bypassing them. This creates a burden and pressure on local CSOs who must professionalize rapidly while absorbing risk without the necessary core or multi-year funding.

However, it goes without saying that without predictable funding flows, local partners are unable to invest in staff development, financial systems, or advocacy infrastructure. This creates a paradox – localization is promoted without reconfiguring the upstream political economy of aid.

5. Conclusion: toward a just transition in aid

The current moment demands a rethinking of both funding modalities and power structures. Localization, if it is to be transformative, requires more than shifting delivery – it must entail shifting money, mandate, and decision-making authority. The decline in traditional aid funding risks undercutting this agenda unless alternative financing such as pooled funds, solidarity philanthropy, and diaspora engagement among others are explicitly aligned with local ownership.

Development actors must resist the tendency to frame localization as a cost-saving exit strategy. Instead, a just transition in aid must foreground equity, reparative justice, and co-governance between donors and recipients.

Tafadzwa Munyaka is a nonprofit/social change professional with crosscutting expertise in fundraising, business development, grants and compliance management, program management, and child rights advocacy. He is committed to contributing to the African narrative on philanthropy and giving, driving impactful change across the continent. 

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 24 2025 – As a result of the worsening climate crisis, extreme weather patterns have disrupted nearly all aspects of human life around the world. With the impacts of fossil fuel reliance being more pronounced than ever before, the United Nations (UN) has implored governments and industries to begin adopting more sustainable, renewable energy sources.

On July 22, UN Secretary‑General António Guterres delivered a speech address: A Moment of Opportunity: Supercharging the Clean Energy Age, in which he relayed the significance and necessity of the energy transition to renewable, clean energy sources. It was a follow-up to to the previous year’s special address, Moment of Truth, in which he declared that the era of fossil fuel usage is nearing its end.

“The fossil fuel age is flailing and failing. We are in the dawn of a new energy era,” said Guterres. “The energy transition is unstoppable, but the transition is not yet fast enough or fair enough…That world is within reach, but it won’t happen on its own.”

According to Guterres, it is imperative that global financing for clean energy programs is scaled up to account for wider-scale usage of renewable fuel sources in the place of fossil fuels. Figures from the UN state that funds must increase five-fold by 2030 in order to keep global temperatures below the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit from the Paris Agreement.

Over the past ten years, only one in five clean energy dollars was allocated to emerging economies outside of China, making it difficult for the vast majority of global industries to adapt to renewable energy usage. Additionally, Africa received only 2 percent of the global fund for clean energy investment, despite the continent having 60 percent of the world’s best sources of solar power.

It is crucial to secure additional investments in clean energy as soon as possible as the climate crisis will have disastrous impacts on human health, livelihoods, economies, and the environment if it continues at the same rate of acceleration. Africa’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) projects that by 2050, there will be 14.5 million climate-related deaths, equivalent to over 2 billion years of life lost. Additionally, the global economy could see an estimated loss of $12.5 trillion USD by 2050.

Currently, climate change is a leading driver of worldwide food insecurity. Hotter temperatures and extreme weather patterns, such as floods, droughts, and wildfires, disrupt agri-food systems around the world, causing reduced crop yields and significant rates of inflation, pushing average costs of food out of reach for vulnerable communities.

On July 2, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) released a report, Global Drought Hotspots report catalogs severe suffering, economic damage, in which it analyzed the effects of the worst global droughts in recent history. It is estimated that over 90 million people in eastern and southern Africa face extreme hunger as a result of climate-driven droughts. Additionally, women, children, the elderly, farmers, and people with chronic illness are disproportionately affected by climate-driven droughts, with health risks such as cholera infections, acute malnutrition, and waterborne illness running rampant around the world.

“The report shows the deep and widespread impacts of drought in an interconnected world: from its rippling effects on price of basic commodities like rice, sugar and oil from Southeast Asia and the Mediterranean; to disruptions in access to drinking water and food in the Amazon due to low river levels, to tens of millions affected by malnutrition and displacement across Africa, “ said Andrea Meza, UNCCD’s Deputy Executive Secretary. “We must urgently invest in sustainable land and water management, nature-based solutions, adapted crops, and integrated public policies to build our resilience to drought —or face increasing economic shocks, instability and forced migration.”

Additionally, the climate crisis has had a significant negative impact on children’s access to education worldwide. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), children exposed to extreme heat patterns around the world could lose approximately 1.5 years of schooling. This is particularly pronounced in low and middle-income countries, which make up eight out of ten of UNESCO’s list of most climate-affected nations.

Over 1 billion people reside in these high-risk countries. UNESCO states that these nations face numerous climate-related disruptions to learning every year, with schools being closed in about 75 percent of all extreme weather events, affecting approximately 5 million children each time.

Climate-sensitive countries such as those in Asia and Central America are especially vulnerable. In China, hotter temperatures have resulted in fewer average years of schooling, worsened performance on important standardized tests, and lower rates of high school completion and college entrance. In Brazil’s most impoverished regions, students lost about 1 percent of learning per year due to extreme heat exposure.

Despite these impacts, the Secretary-General has expressed hope due to recent global successes in the transition to renewable energy sources. On July 22, the UN released the 2025 edition of its Energy Transition Report: Seizing the Moment of Opportunity. This report underscored the progress that was made since the adoption of the Paris Agreement, as well as areas of priority that must be addressed when facilitating this transition.

Since 2010, the costs of renewable energy sources have been gradually declining, to the point that they have become far more affordable than fossil fuels. It is estimated that 90 percent of renewable energy sources around the world are more affordable than the cheapest nonrenewable ones. Figures from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) show that solar power went from being roughly four times more expensive than renewable energy to 41 percent cheaper and wind energy has become 53 percent cheaper.

In 2024, approximately $2 trillion USD was invested in clean energy, compared to the $800 billion invested in the fossil fuels industry. This marks a 70 percent increase from investments in clean energy made one decade ago.

It is imperative for governments to incorporate energy-transition goals into national legislations and provide adequate and ethical guidelines that streamline this process. This transition must empower vulnerable communities that have been most affected by the climate crisis, such as women, children, the disabled, and racial minorities. There must also be guidelines in place that ensure a just transition for workers in which they receive social protections.

Additionally, there must be an effort to maximize the outputs of renewable energy sources so that they can replace global fossil fuels systems entirely. The UN is hopeful that there will be universal access to clean energy by 2030 and that major tech firms will be 100 percent powered by renewable sources by the same year.

“This is not just a shift in power. It is a shift in possibility,” said Guterres. “Of course, the fossil fuel lobby will try, and we know the lengths to which they will go. But, I have never been more confident that they will fail because we have passed the point of no return.”

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By James E. Jennings
ATLANTA, USA, Jul 24 2025 – The dramatic story of Israel’s birth in 1948 following the Nazi Holocaust captured the wonder and admiration of the world. Its founders claimed that Israel would be a light to the nations, but now the Jewish State’s identity has gone from being the victim of genocide to perpetrator in less than two generations.

Israel’s Likud government stands accused of genocide in Gaza by a UN Special Committee, the World Court’s admission that the accusation is plausible, and recently by 28 nations acting in concert to declare Israel in violation of International Humanitarian Law.

What happened? Rather than face the truth of 75 years of injustice to Palestinians that led to the terrible slaughter and hostage-taking by HAMAS in 2023, most Israelis support the daily overkill in Gaza, now nearly two years long. After more than 100,000 casualties under constant bombing of the civilian population with no one shooting back, famine has begun.

By contrast, the speech of Israel’s founding father David Ben Gurion on Israel’s Independence Day declared that:

The State of Israel will…foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

A woman and child walk through the heavily bombed town of Khuza’a in the Gaza Strip. Credit: UN Women/Samar Abu Elouf

Every observer can now see that Israel as a society and government have performed exactly in the opposite way. Israel lost its soul by becoming racist, then racialist, the doctrinaire view of Menachem Begin that Jews are by nature and divine right superior to other races. This has led to suppression of the Palestinians, and, if given the opportunity, to their extermination, as is now evident in Gaza.

If the state exists for the benefit of all its inhabitants, why did President Jimmy Carter, who succeeded in brokering peace between Israel and Egypt, write a book titled Peace, Not Apartheid? If Israel exists for all its citizens, why are the Israeli Arabs second class citizens? Why do Palestinians who fled their homes in 1948 and 1967 still live in camps, with nearly six million persons still classified as refugees?

Why under its decades-long military occupation of Palestine, have Arabs been killed, imprisoned, wounded, neighborhoods bombed, houses destroyed, streets plowed up, families and neighborhoods imprisoned behind concrete walls, and an entire population denied the right to travel? Why, if Israel safeguards the Holy Places of all religions, has its air force bombed nearly 1,000 mosques in Gaza and now the few churches and a Christian hospital there too?

The Zionist’s answer to these questions may be that the Palestinians under decades of military rule are not actually citizens of Israel. That is a distinction without a difference, because the occupying authority has legal responsibility for the population under occupation, including the West Bank and Gaza.

True, there are areas declared to be administered by the Palestinians alone, but no one pretends that the Palestinian territory is truly free and independent. The occupied territory and its people remain wards of the Israeli state.

The idea that the Israeli government for most of its history, and especially now, is faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations is laughable. Even though the UN created Israel, its various governments have long denied any right of the UN to curtail its expansionist aims and war-making powers.

That is made clear most recently by two actions: the joint June 2025 Israel-US stealth attacks on Iran, a member state of the UN, and the years-long systematic bombing and dismantling of UN agencies, offices, schools, and food distribution sites in Gaza.

A Jewish Holocaust survivor, Raphael Lemkin, coined the word genocide and made it his lifelong task to see it implemented in international law. The Genocide Convention was ratified by the United Nations in 1948 but is being deliberately flaunted by Israel in Gaza.

Genocide is a serious charge, but its terms in international law are clear: no killing or setting up conditions for the destruction of a people group just because they are members of that group; no forced expulsion or transfers of that group; and no public advocacy to do so, which is a key provision already violated by Messrs. Netanyahu, Trump, Galant, and others.

In January 2024 the International Court of Justice (ICJ), joined by an Israeli ad hoc Judge, Aharon Barak, voted to urge punishment of those advocating expulsion or transfer of the population of Gaza.

What responsibility do the citizens of Israel have for the actions of their government? Complete responsibility in corporate terms, but not as individuals unless they specifically vote for or advocate genocidal actions. Israeli opposition figures, of which there are very few, are courageous and deserve praise.

What about the citizens of the United States where both Democrats and Republicans have long aided and abetted Israel’s violence toward those under its protection?

Governments and citizens everywhere must join forces to prevent famine from claiming more children in Gaza. US citizens must raise our voices now or be forever classed with those who allowed and abetted today’s Genocide.

James E. Jennings PhD is President of Conscience International, and Leader of US Academics for Peace delegations to Iraq, Iran, Syria, Sudan, and other countries. He taught Middle East History, Archaeology, and Religion at several universities, including The University of Illinois, The University of Tennessee, The University of Akron, and Wheaton College.

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By Kizito Makoye
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania, Jul 24 2025 – When the rains pounded through the night, 44-year-old Teresia Katimba clutched her rosary and prayed silently, her fingers trembling with each whispered Hail Mary. A devout Catholic and mother of four, she stayed awake, huddling her children, hoping the floodwaters wouldn’t engulf them.

In Jangwani, a flood-prone neighborhood in Dar es Salaam, where the Msimbazi River slithers through crowded shacks and a tangle of mangroves, heavy rains routinely trigger flooding and displacement.

“There were nights we didn’t sleep,” says Katimba. “You just sat awake, waiting for the water to come.”

Katimba had learned to read the signs. And on that night, they spelled danger. Her house, nestled precariously beside the riverbank, became a target for misery. Murky floodwater—infested with sewage, discarded plastic bottles and garbage—perpetually surged through the door, soaking mattresses and spoiling maize flour, charcoal and dried sardines.

“My children were terrified; we somehow managed to survive anyway,” she says.

Katimba, an entrepreneur, saw the danger. But like many residents in the impoverished neighborhood, she stayed put—until the floods almost swept away everything.

Today, her life is different. She received compensation in 2024 and relocated to Madale, a dry, forested neighborhood 39 kilometers away, where she built a modest house. “We’re very happy to be here,” she says. “There’s no floodwater to worry about.”

The plight of Katimba’s family highlights wider challenges for many city dwellers.

Teresia Katimba has moved from the dangerous floodplains to safer ground. Credit: Kizito Makoye/IPS

Miraculous Escape

Matilda Msemwa, a resident of Kigogo, recalls how the floods engulfed her living room and destroyed her valued furniture.

Shortly after midnight she sensed a foul smell and an abrupt change in air pressure. Minutes later, the floodwater had risen to waist level.

“I had to scream for help. My daughter nearly drowned as the floods violently filled the house,” she says

Rapid Urbanization

Home to 5.8 million people, Dar es Salaam, one of Africa’s fastest-growing cities, is highly vulnerable to flooding. Around 70 percent of its inhabitants live in informal settlements that are prone to flooding. In 2018, one flooding event at the Msimbazi basin inflicted property damage worth USD 100 million, or 2 percent of the city’s GDP, according to World Bank data.

But for the first time, Dar es Salaam is tackling the flood menace head-on.

Backed by climate financing, the USD 200 million World Bank-funded Msimbazi Basin Development Project aims to turn Dar es Salaam’s flood-prone areas into a climate-resilient green park.

Running through 2028, the project targets the city’s lower Msimbazi River basin, home to 330,000 people living in squalid settlements.

Plans include modern flood control infrastructure—river dredging, terracing, and a complete overhaul of the Jangwani bridge and bus depot.

“This project was conceived after the floods in February 2018, which were very devastating,” says John Morton, a project manager at the World Bank. “The then vice president, who is now the president, convened all the agencies to say, ‘Please come up with a solution for Msimbazi’.”

It was precisely this reality that gave birth to the Msimbazi Opportunity Plan—a comprehensive roadmap to restore the degraded basin and manage future floods. That blueprint is now being realized through a concessional loan from the International Development Association (IDA), part of the World Bank Group.

“IDA credits are concessional,” Morton explains. “They are basically low- or no-interest, with a long grace period and a long repayment period.”

A graphic representation of the Msimbazi Basin Development Project.

More Than Money

But it’s not just the World Bank putting its money where the floodwaters are. The Netherlands and the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) are also on board.

“The Netherlands’ contribution is a grant,” says Morton. “They’re financing 30 million euros, matching our co-financing for a particular subcomponent of the project… It’s a big earthworks contract. They’ll finance 50 percent up to their 30 million euro cap, and then we finance the rest.”

The Spanish funds, he adds, are structured similarly to IDA’s and will be blended into the project once finalized.

Evacuating to Safety

One of the most controversial parts of the initiative is the resettlement of low-income residents currently living in the floodplain. For Morton, the logic is simple—rescue starts with relocation.

“It was very evident that people did not want to live there,” he says. “Their property was being damaged. Their kids were out of school… the flooding was too devastating.”

According to the World Bank, USD 30 million has been disbursed for resettlement of around 3,500 households trapped in high-risk areas.

Reclaiming the Green

At the center of the project’s vision is not just dry homes but a green, living park. The Msimbazi floodplain, currently a chaotic sprawl of settlements and garbage, will be restored to a natural detention area—a place where floodwaters can spread without destroying lives and property.

“Eventually, what we’ll have is basically a flood detention area that’ll be a park and have natural ecosystems, as well as some more park facility-like things that can naturally flood as it should,” Morton says.

Mangrove forests—critical to both river and marine ecosystems—will be protected and expanded.

“The mangroves provide an important function, both on the coastal side and for the river itself,” says Morton. “Right now, they’re under stress from sedimentation and garbage. The idea is to expand them and maintain their function in purifying the water.”

Waste Not, Want Not

Another key concern for Dar’s residents is waste—both solid and liquid—that chokes the river and pollutes the Indian Ocean. Unplanned dumping of rubbish, household sewage, and industrial effluents has turned the river into a toxic soup in places.

The project, says Morton, addresses this head-on.

“There’s a component on watershed management… including reforestation in the middle and upper basin, protection of riverbanks, and investments in solid waste management,” he says.

Many of these interventions target informal settlements that currently dump waste directly into the river.

“There are investments to help organize them and organize services to make sure that collection improves,” he adds.

On the sewage front, the project will initiate a comprehensive monitoring programme to better understand wastewater flows and engage responsible agencies like DAWASA to develop sewerage plans.

Cautious Optimism

‘It’s a turning point—but only if we get it right,’ says Sylvia Macchi, an urban expert on Msimbazi Valley Project

For Macchi, a respected urban development specialist and long-time observer of Dar es Salaam’s planning chaos, the Msimbazi Valley Development Project is “perhaps the most ambitious climate-resilience intervention this city has ever attempted.”

But she’s not clapping just yet.

“We’ve seen grand plans come and go in Dar,” she says. “What matters now is execution—not promises.”

The professor, who has spent decades researching informal settlements and urban flooding in Tanzania, believes the project has the potential to redraw the city’s future—if handled properly.

“Clearing the valley, relocating at-risk communities, and restoring green spaces along the Msimbazi River—that’s urban transformation at scale,” she tells IPS.

Will it Last?

All eyes are now on the future. The project is scheduled to run until 2028—but what happens then?

“There’s an idea to create an institution to manage the park, real estate, and broader watershed,” Morton says. “That’s being studied now—on the legal aspects and how it would be financed.”

Revenue could come from land sales, developer fees, and even regulated sand mining.

“There’ll be proper sand mining, which will help manage the watershed and generate funds,” he explains.

This institution will oversee not just park maintenance but also ensure that gains in environmental protection and climate resilience are not lost after the project closes.

An Oasis in the Making

In a city gasping for green space, the transformation of the Msimbazi floodplain into an urban oasis is as symbolic as it is strategic. Dar es Salaam doesn’t just need protection from floods—it needs hope. And for Morton, the basin’s rebirth is about more than drainage ditches and concrete.

“This is going to be an asset for the city,” he says. “Not only to reduce flooding but to be a park—a green space that doesn’t exist in Dar es Salaam now. Everybody will have access to it, including low-, medium-, and high-income people. That’s the broader benefit.”

If successful, the Msimbazi Basin Development Project won’t just protect Dar’s poorest—it will provide a blueprint for climate-resilient urban planning across Africa.

“This is about turning adversity into opportunity,” Morton says with measured optimism.

From the banks of the Msimbazi River to the halls of the World Bank, the vision is clear. Dar es Salaam will no longer surrender to the floodwaters. With strong oversight, community input, and green innovation, the city’s greatest vulnerability may just become its most precious asset.

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