Anxiety and uncertainty are core features of global development cooperation at the moment. Previous opinion pieces have highlighted the colossal fall-out of the termination of USAID, against a backdrop of declining ODA contributions. The news since the start of 2025 has felt unrelentingly bleak. But are there some bright spots appearing?
Recently, one particular right-leaning leader has dominated the global stage. During President Trump’s first 100 days in office, he has initiated a tariff war, decimated USAID, and with it the life chances of many of the world’s poorest people, withdrawn from the WHO and Paris Climate Agreement, deported innocent individuals, withdrawn federal research funding, and upended geopolitics – most notably by no longer being a reliable partner for defence and security purposes.
But the US is not the only concern. From the Georgian Dream party in Georgia, to Orbán in Hungary, Erdagon in Turkey, Milei in Argentina, to increased support for nationalist parties in France and Germany, we have been witnessing a worrying rise in right-wing popularism. Here in the UK, there are also signs of shifts in the political firmament away from the traditional main parties, towards growing public support for anti-immigration, nation-first politics, with the Reform Party performing strongly in local elections and winning a parliamentary seat.
The populism espoused by these political movements commonly goes hand-in-hand with an insular view of development challenges, withdrawing from the world, instead of coming together and often denying that the challenges even exist – demonstrated by climate change denial, for example. The recent cuts to the UK’s aid budget by the Labour government in order to boost defence spending seemed to be achieved in part because of the expectation of a lack of public outcry over this decision – which indeed proved to be the case.
Bright spots for positive change
In the midst of these gloomy prospects, those who worry about declining public support for development cooperation and multilateralism have much to feel glum about. So when bright spots (“good things that occur during a bad or difficult time”, according to Webster’s Dictionary) do come along, it’s important to recognise them and where feasible to respond. As a means of survival, human beings remain wired in ways that lead us to gravitate towards danger signals; the media knows this well by serving up a relentless diet of bad news. So, it takes a conscious act to see a bright spot as a signal that positive change can actually happen.
One such bright spot has, fortunately, appeared recently. Canada’s election result, with the Liberal Party winning under the leadership of Mark Carney, brings some hope to those of us working towards progress on our urgent and shared global challenges. Having one more government with a relatively progressive agenda, at a time that can appear to be dominated by more right-leaning, and increasingly authoritarian governments globally, is an opportunity to reinvigorate international cooperation for development goals.
In addition, the Australian general election generated a similar result, with Anthony Albanese, leader of the centre-left Labor party, being returned to office. His campaign was turned around after the Australian public reacted to Donald Trump’s tariffs, and rejected the leader of the Conservative party, who had been emulating a lot of Trump’s ideas.
The Canadian and Australian election results offer a galvanising opportunity for governments with more progressive agendas to establish likeminded alliances for positive change. The urgent and mutual challenges, such as climate change, rising inequalities, protracted conflict, global health security, gender rights, and the governance of emerging technologies, including AI, require international cooperation and for willing governments to push for progress on these issues.
Working together for common agendas
This can be achieved through informal or new formal alliances, as well as in existing multilateral spaces. Co-ordinating efforts through the UN, is one practical step, and joining forces at major conferences is another. A good example of cooperation from governments with more progressive agendas can be seen from Spain, Brazil and South Africa, these nations are working together to push for common agendas, with their respective leaders declaring in a joint statement to ‘bet on multilateralism to fight inequality and global warming’. They agreed to cooperate around three significant events for international development they are hosting this year – Financing for Development in Seville, the G20 summit in Johannesburg and COP30 in Belem.
Since Covid-19, global health security is also an example of a challenge that requires international cooperation and is an opportunity for countries to engage for progress. At IDS, we are involved in an example of bilateral cooperation between the UK and Japan on science for anti-microbial resistance (AMR), and the hunt for new antibiotics. For health more broadly, another small but important example, is the Community Health and Wellbeing Workers (CHWWs), an initiative to address health inequalities being implemented by the UK government, after learning from a model that began in Brazil.
Engaging with China
Whilst the global health architecture has taken a significant hit with cuts in both funding and international cooperation, some countries, most notably China, but also the UAE, have been increasing their investments in lower-income countries. There is a strong case for the UK, and other progressive governments, to develop a strategic approach to engaging China on global health, where China is playing an increasingly important role, through the Development Assistance for Health, the intersections with the Belt and Road and Global Development Initiatives.
New applications of AI to health, strengthening health systems using digital health, or innovative biopharmaceuticals, particularly in oncology and antimicrobials all come with the need for international cooperation. Governments such as Canada, the UK and Brazil have the opportunity to lead on engagement with China and other countries on these issues. Indeed, it is integral to the security of their own domestic interests, as well as for health security on a global scale.
On science and research more broadly, we saw from Brexit the damage that can be done when international researchers face barriers to working together. Today, we see with astonishment and disappointment that the US federal government has withdrawn around $11billion of university research funding. This is funding that would have provided research on all manner of disciplines, for solutions to real-world problems, from cancer to domestic violence, agriculture and digital technologies.
Cooperation for global challenges
Countries that believe in progressive change of course have many different demands and expectations to address, but support to generation of the knowledge and evidence which helps to show what works, where and why is needed now more than ever. Transformative research on global challenges can often best be achieved by bringing academic and non-academic (government, business, civil society) actors together in consortia and partnerships to work on key problems. The research capabilities from lower-income countries are also vital, and cooperation for science to tackle global challenges should be sought with governments around the world.
So, let’s celebrate bright spots when they do appear, even if we have to look harder than ever to find them. And, when we find them, let’s respond positively to encourage more. I hope that progressive governments, boosted by the Canadian and Australian election results, can push back against President Trump’s downward spiral, and engage in multilateral spaces and other partnerships to forge ahead in positive, constructive and dynamic ways to meet the urgent challenges we all face.
