This blog was written by BRAC Executive Director Asif Saleh, and originally appeared on LinkedIn.
The Setting
Development cooperation is going through a huge crisis.
Things need to change and they need to change dramatically. Some aspects of the old model have to die, and on top of this rock bottom, a strong foundation of a new model will emerge.
So let us be honest about a few things first:
Within the push of politics and pull of development outcomes, the sector, particularly the ones influenced by bilateral aid money, is facing an identity crisis.
The first thing we need to collectively decide, what does success looks like? Is that vision a shared vision? By that I mean - is it a political vision or is it a vision rooted in developmental outcomes, i.e. helping communities achieve their aspirations. Or are we going to continue to be in between and hurtle into irrelevance?
For the sake of simplicity, let us assume that the shared vision is about attaining developmental outcomes.
The second point to establish is that, just as not all capital entering a country needs to be grant capital, not all development challenges can, or should, be solved through business models. The type of capital required depends on the specific problem and the outcome we seek.
If we look closely at where impact capital has genuinely made a difference—where it has gone into areas that private capital would not have reached otherwise—such examples are hard to find. Climate mitigation, for instance, now attracts substantial private investment; it is no longer impact investment but commercial investment.
We should therefore be honest about what real impact means, and recognize the critical role of development cooperation in achieving it. To me, true impact investment is that which flows into areas where private capital would not naturally go - where immediate business opportunities may be limited, but where the infusion of much-needed capital and scale can, over time, create new and sustainable markets.
Third, it is a fact that the finance pot is lot smaller than before. Bilateral grant money is shrinking fast. The opportunity cost of getting it wrong is far higher than before. In simple terms we can have little margin for error going forward.
10 shifts we need to see
With all these constraints in mind and noting that the donor base is not at all a homogeneous group and there are different interests at play, I would like to point out 10 practical things that can be done to start reimagining development cooperation.
1. Stop funding so many intermediaries in the process—particularly on the implementation side.
We simply have too many—and that includes too many multilateral agencies as well. They should not be implementing on the ground and competing for resources with local organizations in countries and taking the lion’s share of available funding in terms of overhead and cost.
The era of experts coming in from far away to solve pressing local problems is over. The era of editing a fancy report in the age of AI by the DC-based consultants is gone as well. The world is far more connected than ever. Knowledge can be transferred in many ways. Identify why you have needed intermediaries to date and build some of those capacities in local organizations very intentionally.
Oftentimes, risk and inability to move large funding by locals is given as the reason for using intermediaries. The reality is that even if this is true, it should be a short term transitional strategy. In Cox’s Bazar, BRAC has absorbed the risk of funding local organizations for the donors by creating a pooled fund with a very transitional approach to building specific capacities so that after a few years, the donor can have the confidence to channel the money directly to the local actor.
2. Fund local—but more on the approach and not the zip code.
If we are serious about rethinking cooperation, we must challenge some long-held oversimplifications. The locally-led development conversation often devolves into box-ticking—focusing on North versus South, where offices are located, or who is on the payroll—without delving into deeper questions about power, accountability, and long-term capabilities and shared, lived experience.
Simply hiring locally or partnering regionally does not guarantee that we are working with communities in a way that builds or enhances systems, supports agency, or sustains change. Rethinking cooperation requires honesty about the shortcuts we have grown accustomed to. It calls for a deeper examination of how change is built—whether it grows from within, reflects people’s lived realities, and strengthens what already works while addressing barriers that hold people back.
3. Move away from artificial silos.
Strengthening whole systems through integrated approaches is essential, even when addressing a single issue might seem simpler. For example, embracing business for good has not only helped create jobs where they were non-existent, but supported BRAC’s sustainability as a development actor, helping us remain resilient in the face of disruptions in the aid sector. We create silos for our own survival and for the industry’s survival. The reality is much more integrated. In one of the Rohingya refugee camps, I was told a single household gets visited by more than 10 case workers—different types of social workers—all representing various different sectors and their respective agencies. The reality is that one single social worker can do this job. Those who fund and implement development must look beyond traditional sectors and siloed interventions. Health, education, finance, and climate are interconnected.
4. Move away from short term project funding and focus on the long term, on a few issues—strategically.
Those who implement and fund development must commit to long-term goals. Real change is not a sprint; it is a marathon. Deep-rooted challenges cannot be solved through quick fixes or short-term projects. This means moving beyond typical short term project cycles and investing in longer-term, multidisciplinary efforts focused on systems change, market creation, and intergenerational impact. The how part of this needs to be fleshed out but the will has to be there to move from overt focus on compliance to development outcomes.
5. Small is beautiful but big is necessary.
Innovation without scale is pointless. Scaling has many different pathways. There are proven models of scaling through different pathways. Build and commit to following evidence, and finance those to grow these proven models more and more rather than continuously looking for new innovations.
The ultra-poor graduation model, a small pilot, funded by the then-DFID, was scaled up. Then Ford Foundation supported a six-country pilot and a randomized control trial (RCT) done by Esther Duflow and Abhjit Banerjee. It was a proven model and now a band of high-net-worth individuals through the Audacious grant are helping to scale it up through governments around the world. It is now helping to look at social protection with a new frame for the governments. Donors and philanthropists should not shy away from funding a proven model and scale through multiple pathways. This may be boring for some as there is no AI or new innovation in it. But it works!
6. Identify areas of win for both the target country and your own country.
The majority of the countries have now graduated to the next economic level and have higher aspirations. They are spooked by the jobless growth. But areas of collaboration can involve knowledge transfer, skilling people for jobs where developed countries need people. One of the most sought after programs at BRAC right now is language training for young Bangladeshi caregivers who want to go to Japan for a higher salary.
7. Communicate effectively to an increasingly difficult world where no good deeds go unpunished.
Build a clear narrative around cooperation that is border agnostic. To do that, the first thing we need to do is be absolutely transparent and authentic. Altruistic reasons are great but, particularly for bilateral funding, it is important to be clear that soft power is essential. Aid leads to more trade and security, sustainable peace, sustainable development, and migration, it is all interlinked and is win-win for everyone. This narrative will have appeal both at home and abroad.
8. Focus on developing more coalitions on single issues.
Use your convening power with the foundations and high-net-worth individuals to invest in a few big bets and proven solutions that can be scaled.
9. The social sector is not used to seeing organizational death, but that is about to change and we should not panic.
The development sector was ripe for disruption for a long time and in this process many organizations running on old model, intermediaries and UN agencies who were too comfortable with the status quo, may die. And that is okay. It will be painful. But it is better than keeping lots of actors in ICU and prolonging the agony. The scarcity will necessitate newer kinds of development organizations as their needs are far from over. In fact, some will argue it is needed more than ever.
10. Each sector must play to its strength - bring it all together.
We need to acknowledge that governments cannot do everything. Governments give scale. The private sector gives efficiency, drive for results, and outcomes. Social organizations bring in acute social awareness and community engagement in the process. We must continue efforts to solve social challenges by marrying these approaches with the single focus of creating a solution model. So, the drive for continuous dialogue and understanding each other's language, leading to collaborative actions is the only way to reimagine development cooperation.
