Events

Event summary:

On 15 May 2025 Nuffield College was pleased to host a panel discussion on the future of foreign aid, convened by the Nuffield Humanitarian Forum under the leadership of Professors Andrew Thompson and Sir Mike Aaronson. Co-chaired by former Government Ministers for development Baroness Valerie Amos and Sir Andrew Mitchell, the panel members were Ilze Brands Kehris, Assistant UN Secretary General for Human Rights, Michael Jermey, Chair of the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), Harpinder Collacott, Executive Director of the Global Public Investment Network, and David Priestland, Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford.

The discussion was originally framed around the concept of the legitimacy of aid, but was given added urgency by the pressing crisis of globalization and multilateralism, including the foreign aid cuts undertaken by both the US, UK, and other European governments, the challenge of China’s alternative model of developmental aid to the Global South, and the latter’s demand for a radically different kind of humanitarian response – in both emergency response and longer-term development.

Regarding legitimacy, the Forum was invited to reflect on ‘why and ‘how’ aid is given: whether it is seen as justified by the public in donor countries, and whether it is being delivered in a manner that is respectful to people in recipient countries. One of the chief points made in the introductory session was that commitment to foreign aid does not exclusively arise from abstract humanitarianism, but from the belief that ensuring economic, social and political stability in the Global South through foreign aid is in the national interest, defined broadly as it must be in an interconnected world.

The main body of the panel discussion touched upon four key themes: the necessary relationship between foreign aid and human rights; current British public attitudes to foreign aid; the future funding of foreign aid; and current ideological challenges to humanitarianism.

On the issue of human rights, the discussants agreed that in the context of the current crisis of multilateralism and global solidarity, the case for aid had to present it not as an act of charity, but as responding to a basic human right.

In terms of British popular attitudes to foreign aid, the discussion concluded that despite the long history of humanitarianism in Britain, the national public is divided into at least three groups: supporters, sceptics and potential supporters - who need to be persuaded case by case. The mass media had a fundamental role to play in debunking the myths surrounding foreign aid and demonstrating that it was not only good in its own right, but also served the national interest.

The discussion on the issue of funding highlighted the nature of the relationship between Northern donor and Southern recipient nations (which is inevitably asymmetrical but does not have to be inequitable), as well as the increasingly fragmented structure of the aid regime and its short-term mentality, prioritising response over prevention.

The panel concluded that a radical systemic reform would require not only the participation of all UN Member States in the funding of foreign aid according to their abilities, but also the mobilization of global public and private finance in favour of a long-term and coherent conception of aid.

Finally, while addressing the current challenges faced by liberal humanitarianism, the discussion focused its attention on populist and overly nationalistic portrayals of foreign aid as “toxic empathy”, and more sophisticated usages of humanitarian language to justify revisionist imperialist ventures by illiberal leaders. These narratives could not be ignored, and the challenge was to find ways of countering them effectively.

In conclusion, and on a positive note, it was observed that the current crisis of multilateralism and its institutions provided an opportunity to reform foreign aid. This meant rebooting the global financial system and gearing it to both relief and development aid, mobilizing mass media to reverse the recent negative turn in the cyclical history of humanitarianism, and building the national and global leadership necessary to restore popular support for foreign aid. Only the seizure of this opportunity could restore the legitimacy and secure the future of foreign aid.