It is clear 2026 will not be a routine year for global development cooperation. The US is now a deliberate norm-breaker under Trump 2.0, China is edging into high-income status while insisting it is still “developing”, close to 80 per cent of the population in low- and middle-income countries live under some form of autocracy, and Russia is selling long-term nuclear dependence as a development offer. At the same time middle powers from Brazil to the Gulf states are quietly turning that turmoil into leverage. In a new IDOS Policy Brief we argue that these dynamics are not background noise but the core story that will shape cooperation in the next few years.
It is clear 2026 will not be a routine year for global development cooperation. The US is now a deliberate norm-breaker under Trump 2.0, China is edging into high-income status while insisting it is still “developing”, close to 80 per cent of the population in low- and middle-income countries live under some form of autocracy, and Russia is selling long-term nuclear dependence as a development offer. At the same time middle powers from Brazil to the Gulf states are quietly turning that turmoil into leverage. In a new IDOS Policy Brief we argue that these dynamics are not background noise but the core story that will shape cooperation in the next few years.
It is clear 2026 will not be a routine year for global development cooperation. The US is now a deliberate norm-breaker under Trump 2.0, China is edging into high-income status while insisting it is still “developing”, close to 80 per cent of the population in low- and middle-income countries live under some form of autocracy, and Russia is selling long-term nuclear dependence as a development offer. At the same time middle powers from Brazil to the Gulf states are quietly turning that turmoil into leverage. In a new IDOS Policy Brief we argue that these dynamics are not background noise but the core story that will shape cooperation in the next few years.