The Future of Funding After USAID: A Moment of Reckoning
USAID’s dismantling has left a funding vacuum in global development. In the short term, projects will stall, organizations will scramble, and communities that have relied on external aid will face uncertainty. But here’s the truth: this is an opportunity to reshape the funding ecosystem for the better.
For too long, development funding has been dictated by donors far removed from the realities on the ground. With USAID out of the picture, funders, grantmakers, and grantees must rethink their roles, priorities, and impact.
So what needs to change?
🔹 Funders must shift from charity to investment. Instead of short-term aid, we need long-term economic and social infrastructure that allows communities to thrive on their own terms.
🔹 Decentralize decision-making. The era of development priorities being set in Washington, London, and Paris must end. Local organizations must lead.
🔹 Invest in self-sufficiency. Focus funding on community-led enterprises, cooperatives, and alternative financial models that create lasting independence.
🔹 Move beyond project-based funding. Provide unrestricted, long-term support that allows organizations to set their own agendas instead of chasing donor-driven priorities.
🔹 Fund systems, not parallel structures. Strengthen local governance, public institutions, and social movements rather than bypassing them.
Who Should Receive Funding?
✅ Community-led organizations over large INGOs.
✅ Women, youth, and Indigenous leaders who are already building solutions.
✅ Movements and advocacy groups fighting for systemic change.
Why Fund At All?
Because global inequality is not accidental, it was designed. The current economic system extracts wealth from the Global South while concentrating power in the Global North. True funding is not charity; it is redistribution, reparation, and investment in a more just future.
USAID’s exit is not the end of development finance, it’s a wake-up call. Will funders step up to correct past mistakes, or will they repackage the same flawed models?
It’s time to fund differently. Fund better. Fund for justice, not charity.