It is a strange and uncertain time to write about development cooperation. Once reliable standard bearers for aid programs, G7 economies like the United States are retreating from development assistance commitments. The United Nations (UN), the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are navigating declining core contributions and calls for reform. Rising powers are challenging the traditional rules of the game, advocating for South-South Cooperation as a more sustainable alternative to Official Development Assistance, or foreign aid.
International organizations and governments must reimagine how countries create, finance, and deliver socio-economic progress. But where should they begin? In a new report, we reflect on roughly 13,000 survey responses to four Listening to Leaders Surveys (from 2014 to 2024) for ideas about how development cooperation might evolve in the decade ahead. AidData uses the term “leader” broadly—we survey government officials, parliamentarians, civil society, and private sector representatives from 148 countries to capture diverse perspectives from those who make or shape development policy across the Global South.
To complement domestic resources at home, leaders reported receiving advice or assistance from 71 external bilateral and multilateral development partners. UN agencies, the World Bank, and the IMF(“traditional multilaterals”) tended to work with the most leaders, sectors, and countries. They were joined by advanced economies with historically large assistance portfolios like the U.S., Germany, Japan, and the European Union (“traditional bilaterals”). Among “non-traditional” players, China has been the front-runner, working with more leaders and countries than other South-South Cooperation providers. Turkey and India were emerging contenders, working with leaders from 50+ countries by 2024.
Development cooperation is dynamic, not static. Traditional bilateral assistance providers like the UK and Canada, along with Germany and Switzerland, saw their “footprints” (the percentage of leaders who reported receiving their advice or assistance) decline over the period. These contractions often aligned with policy shifts that cut aid or consolidated aid agencies into foreign ministries. We anticipate similar dynamics in the future for bilaterals like France, the Netherlands, and the U.S., in light of recent moves to reduce development budgets, shift resources to defense and domestic priorities, and consolidate agencies.
Development cooperation may be imperfect, but the majority of Global South leaders viewed their external partners as delivering value, providing financial resources and technical expertise, and working collaboratively with government and civil society. Leaders rated the performance of their development partners on two measures: agenda-setting influence on their domestic policy priorities and helpfulness in implementing policy changes.
In the report, Listening to Leaders 2025, we examine the performance of individual development partners over time and relative to each other and consider what factors might explain these perceptions. Top performers across the decade were more likely to be traditional multilaterals or bilaterals, long-standing suppliers of development finance at scale, and above-average performers in prior surveys.
Safeguard multilateral venues with an expanded voice for middle powers
Traditional multilaterals consistently dominated the leaderboard on influence and helpfulness over the last decade, even as Global South leaders have more choice in their partners than ever before. Nevertheless, these venues for international cooperation are under tremendous pressure from two directions. OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) donors are reducing aid commitments and increasingly channeling their assistance bilaterally or via issue-specific vertical funds. In parallel, non-traditional development partners and Global South countries are clamoring for greater voice and vote in the governance of international organizations.
Heads of multilateral organizations recognize the need to bolster legitimacy, improve agility, and diversify their resource engines. However, they have had to tread carefully in rebalancing power among shareholders and member countries, to avoid losing traditional contributors. The strategic calculus may be shifting, as large DAC bilaterals like the U.S., France, and the UK cut back their aid and engagement in international organizations. Non-traditional development partners, smaller DAC bilaterals, and Global South countries may increasingly represent the future of multilateral development cooperation. Noticeably, many of these players were among the most improved in perceived performance, charting big performance gains over the decade but still lagging bigger players.
In a world characterized by intensified geopolitical competition, traditional multilaterals could position themselves as trustworthy venues to adjudicate between conflicting interests in ways that strengthen the negotiating power of non-traditional development partners, along with other low- and middle-income countries. Survey responses underscore that doubling down on building trust with Global South counterparts could help multilaterals cement their status as preferred partners, even as the broader development ecosystem is disrupted. Leaders pointed to the importance of an institution’s reputation for honesty and transparency and its processes for communicating regularly and timely follow-through on commitments.
Reorient future cooperation around shared prosperity and mutual benefit
Traditional bilaterals are at a critical juncture. Political scrutiny and public criticism over aid programs have prompted many advanced economies to make abrupt and dramatic changes to their aid architecture that risk squandering critical technical expertise at home and goodwill abroad. Global South countries are less secure and more vulnerable, as they scramble to find alternative resources and expertise to sustain critical development gains.
For traditional bilaterals that care about projecting influence with foreign leaders and publics, they should also be mindful that financial resources and technical expertise were by far the top two reasons to explain leader perceptions of development partner performance. For countries reorienting their aid programs, it will be important to get the balance right—being forthright about national interests while still responsive to what Global South counterparts want.
Survey responses highlighted respect for the host government’s authority, alignment with the national development strategy, and collaboration with local government and civil society as key to describing why a development partner was influential or helpful. Leaders emphasized adaptability as a desired attribute in their preferred partners, particularly a willingness to adjust approaches in consultation with domestic stakeholders or modify projects to fit the context.
Get serious about policy coherence and a broader suite of economic tools
Aid is a critical resource for resource-constrained countries to address challenges that cannot yet attract private sector investment. At the same time, it is unpredictable and inherently unsustainable: a temporary, time-bound solution rather than a renewable resource. Survey results indicate that Global South leaders recognize this. They want development partners to prioritize sustainability in building local capacity, aiming for long-term impacts, and coordinating well with other actors, rather than working in isolation. Some respondents explicitly cited planning for a transition after the partnership as another key consideration.
As aid is likely to be in increasingly short supply in the coming decade, it will be even more important for development partners to focus on better integrating aid with other tools of economic statecraft, such as trade, foreign direct investment, and remittances. These non-aid flows are critical to help low- and middle-income countries expand the available resource envelope to advance development in their societies. Development partners should create the conditions for countries to transition from aid to trade and investment partners. This implies that international organizations and government agencies need to walk the talk of “policy coherence,” ensuring broader economic policies are helping, not hindering, this goal.
