Reflections on the Aid Industrial Complex
Seeing my paper/analysis The Aid Industrial Complex: Analyzing Power Structures, Dependency Dynamics, and Reform Pathways in a Disrupted Global Order ranked as the most downloaded and most viewed on SSRN (Social Science Research Network) under the Foreign Aid, Foreign Direct Investment, and Globalization categories has been both humbling and thought-provoking.
It tells me something important: there is a growing hunger to understand not just how international aid works, but why it so often fails to deliver on its promises. For me, this recognition is more than a professional milestone — it is a reminder that the questions I raised in this analysis are resonating far beyond academic circles.
When I first began writing the paper, I didn’t set out to write a manifesto. I wanted to map what I had been seeing and experiencing: the international aid and development sector — a sector that often talks about change but is structurally designed to resist it.
The term “aid industrial complex” isn’t just academic jargon. It names something real: a sprawling global system of donors, NGOs, contractors, think tanks, and foundations, moving more than $200 billion every year. Like the military-industrial complex it is often compared to, the aid system has its own inertia. It feeds itself, sustains itself, and — too often — serves itself.
What I Saw While Writing
This paper is grounded in data, reports, and the literature. But the heart of it comes from my lived experience — working inside and outside the system at country, regional, and headquarters levels with NGOs, the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, UN agencies, and donor institutions. And in that space, one realization stood out:
We, as professionals in the sector, have built a system that is remarkably good at sustaining itself, but remarkably bad at transforming itself.
Even as crises multiply, funding is shrinking. Donors are retreating into domestic priorities. In the U.S., we witnessed the dissolution of USAID. In Europe, billions were slashed from aid budgets. What once seemed unthinkable is now happening in real time — the end of aid as we knew it.
The Cost of a Self-Sustaining System
The paper highlights what others have called “phantom aid” — with less than 10% of flows ever reaching communities directly. I’ve seen this firsthand: the endless compliance requirements, the cycles of reporting that prioritize donors over people, the projects that close when the funding cycle ends, leaving little behind. I’ve also seen the discrimination in practice — between local and international actors, and between community interests and donor demands.
Dependency becomes entrenched. Local leadership is sidelined. Narratives remain donor-driven. The very structure of the aid industrial complex makes change feel almost impossible.
But Crisis Can Be a Turning Point
And yet, disruption brings possibility. If this is indeed the end of aid as we knew it, then we stand at a threshold. South-South cooperation is growing. Local actors are stepping into the space left behind. The push for fiscal autonomy and industrialization in the Global South is no longer just an aspiration — it is becoming a survival necessity. Many individuals and initiatives are already working to reimagine, rethink, and redesign how aid is done.
The question is whether we, as a sector, have the courage to face what this means: not tinkering at the edges, but fundamentally rethinking the architecture of aid.
Why This Matters
This isn’t about cynicism. It’s about honesty. We cannot fix what we refuse to name. The aid industrial complex is real — and until we acknowledge how it serves itself, we will never move toward a system that truly serves people.
Writing this paper was, for me, a way of holding up a mirror to the sector I have dedicated much of my life to. I remain convinced that there is a way forward — but only if we are willing to start with first principles, strip down the assumptions, and rebuild with equity, accountability, and genuine partnership at the core.
You can read the full analysis here: [link] or https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5367117
or
https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5367117
or
https://orcid.org/0009-0000-2825-5855
A Call to you all:
I’d love to hear from others working inside or alongside this system: What do you see? Where do you think the real obstacles to change lie? And what possibilities do you believe are within our reach if we dare to reimagine aid from the ground up?
Ali Al Mokdad
