The dinosaurs of international aid must adapt or die their expensive era is over | Halima Begum

The aid sector faces mounting pressure from high living costs, reduced aid budgets, and disrupted humanitarian conditions. International charity networks that support the current aid system are strained and also contribute to its shortcomings. Large charities have promoted localisation and decolonisation for years but have not delivered meaningful change. Power, funding, and decision-making remain concentrated among foreign staff and boards far from grassroots communities, creating a contradiction between advocating reform and lacking the capacity to implement it. Questions arise about whether it is morally right for UK-based charities to spend heavily on fundraising and UK-based jobs rather than supporting locally led organisations in countries facing urgent development challenges.

"The international charity network that props up the broken aid system is both under strain and part of the problem unable to adapt to the times and increasingly unfit for purpose. For years, large international charities have championed localisation of aid, expressing their collective commitment to transformation and decolonisation. But they have not achieved it. Despite being some of the strongest voices calling for change, internally they remain structurally resistant to evolution."

"Power, funding and decision-making remain concentrated in the hands of foreign staff and boards far removed from the grassroots. This creates a fundamental contradiction. The very organisations advocating for change are often the least able to deliver, and logical questions arise that the sector is simply not prepared to answer."

"For instance, is it morally right that a large charity based in the UK spends 120m a year on fundraising primarily on the business of generating and supporting jobs in the UK, instead of giving to organisations working in Sudan, Bangladesh and Myanmar that are under national leadership to resolve their own development challenges? The public expect that their donations go directly to needs at the grassroots level or on the frontline."

"Despite visible commitments to equitable partnerships, I discussed the fact that international structures remain so bureaucratically layered from head offices to regional hubs that they often unintentionally drown out local voices."

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