This year’s High-Level Week of the UN General Assembly, marking the organization’s 80th anniversary, underscored a growing legitimacy crisis in global development. Deep cuts to official development assistance by wealthy countries, particularly the United States, have triggered a broader reckoning over the credibility of the aid system itself. What was once portrayed as partnership is now increasingly perceived across the Global South as coercion—a sentiment made clear in African leaders’ interventions at the assembly. What stood out this year was not only disillusionment but reinvention. African countries presented a vision of development rooted in sovereignty, dignity, and equity rather than dependency. This shift is more than merely fiscal; it reflects a deeper crisis of legitimacy in global governance brought about by the collapse of the traditional aid model. This crisis cannot be solved through incremental reform. It requires a redistribution of power and resources toward the Global South.
During the UN General Assembly debate, responses to this reality varied. Some nations, such as the Comoros and Lesotho, called on donors to restore aid flows, emphasizing the social costs of declining assistance. Others, including members of the newly formed Alliance of Sahel States, rejected Western-led systems altogether, calling instead for regional self-reliance, financial sovereignty, and trade-based cooperation. The contrast highlights a fundamental divide: one approach seeks relief within the existing framework, while the other questions the framework itself. Both are shaped by growing frustration with extractive arrangements disguised as partnership, development, or peacekeeping.
Reclaiming Agency and Redefining Fairness
While views on aid differed sharply, many African leaders went beyond that debate altogether. Their interventions reflected a deeper redefinition of development itself—focusing less on the volume of assistance and more on what drives growth and how to mobilize financing in ways that strengthen Africa’s agency. The goal is to build sustainable sources of revenue, expand domestic fiscal capacity, and reduce dependency on the policy dictates of external actors. A shared critique of conditionality ran through many speeches. Development aid tied to political or ideological requirements is increasingly viewed as an instrument of pressure. Rwanda’s foreign minister captured this sentiment in calling for a move from “aid to trade”—from dependency to dignity. The growing focus on “predistribution”—tackling inequality at its root through fairer trade rules, wage reforms, and market regulation—reflects an effort to reclaim policy space and build economies on sovereign terms.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) highlight the magnitude of the issue. Adopted in 2015, they were meant to guide global progress by 2030. Yet five years before the deadline, only 17% are on track. The $4 trillion annual financing gap dominated discussions, as leaders questioned whether the SDGs remain achievable, or whether the system itself has failed. For many African countries, the issue is not simply technical but moral. Governments are forced into impossible choices between paying creditors and investing in schools or healthcare. Sub-Saharan African countries now spend about 12% of their budgets on debt servicing—a figure that many leaders described as indefensible. Several noted that the United States spends a similar share of its budget on defense, underscoring the imbalance in global priorities and the moral contradictions of the current order.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the creation of a G20 Extraordinary Committee of Independent Experts, chaired by Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, to explore new financing models. The committee—comprising experts from Brazil, India, Uganda, and South Africa—will present recommendations ahead of the Johannesburg G20 summit in November. It symbolizes an emerging coalition among Global South countries to rethink the principles of development finance and establish a system based on fairness, accountability, and shared responsibility rather than benevolence.
Toward a New Compact for Development
A recurring theme in New York was the call to reform international financial institutions. African leaders demanded fairer lending conditions, predictable funding for peacebuilding, and freedom from the economic chokehold of debt and resource dependency. Many referred to the Compromiso de Sevilla, adopted in July 2025 at the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development, which promised renewed commitment to global finance but was criticized for lacking enforcement mechanisms. The absence of US delegates reinforced doubts about the legitimacy of the process. Algeria’s foreign minister, Ahmed Attaf, summed up the frustration: declarations are plentiful, but implementation is rare.
African countries are no longer content to be bystanders. Under South Africa’s G20 presidency, experts from across the continent have been advising on debt management and sustainable finance. Discussions have grown more sophisticated, focusing on structural issues such as the cost of capital, the pace of credit recovery, and risk premiums imposed on developing markets. From Senegal’s call for predictable funding for peace operations to Nigeria’s proposal for an “International Court of Justice for Money” to address illicit financial flows, Africa is bringing new and assertive ideas to the table. The demand for fairer lending reflects a broader recognition that aid with strings attached is increasingly indistinguishable from debt diplomacy. Institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank continue to reproduce hierarchies rather than dismantle them. Until developing countries achieve equitable representation and decision-making power, the system will remain skewed toward the interests of wealthy countries.
Multilateral development banks, including the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, have stepped in to fill some gaps. However, they lack the capacity to finance large-scale infrastructure and development projects. Philanthropic organizations have also tried to bridge funding shortfalls but remain limited by their size and lack of public accountability. As several African leaders have observed, charity often benefits donors more than recipients. The existing global financial order, they argued, was not designed to deliver fairness or inclusion.
Debt-restructuring mechanisms offer little relief. The G20 Common Framework, established to coordinate action among creditors, has been slow and reactive. It typically requires countries to default before they can qualify for restructuring, which undermines credit ratings and deters investment. Credit-rating agencies compound inequities with opaque methodologies and limited understanding of local contexts, resulting in inflated risk assessments that drive up borrowing costs. Many African countries lack the data infrastructure to challenge these judgments, creating a vicious cycle in which perception reinforces penalty. The consequences are profound. Long-term development projects often deliver immediate returns to creditors while yielding benefits for citizens only in the years to come. This mismatch exacerbates capital flight and dependency. Some governments are attempting to break the pattern by enhancing financial governance, monitoring public spending, and developing bankable projects that can attract sustainable investment. However, national efforts alone cannot substitute for global systemic reform.
Nevertheless, some progress has been made. At the Financing for Development Conference in Sevilla, participants endorsed the creation of a Borrowers’ Forum to improve coordination among debtor nations and strengthen their collective voice. The initiative led by the World Bank and Spain on debt-for-climate and debt-for-nature swaps was another modest but positive step. Within the G20, the proposal for an African Credit Rating Agency has gained traction, with the goal of producing more context-sensitive evaluations of African economies and reducing dependence on foreign agencies that often misread risk. These initiatives remain incremental but point to a gradual rebalancing of global financial governance.
Climate finance continues to test the credibility of international commitments. Developed countries have repeatedly failed to meet their pledges. The International Court of Justice’s recent advisory opinion on climate obligations gave moral and legal weight to calls for greater accountability but lacked enforcement power. At COP29 in Azerbaijan, developing countries urged wealthy countries to mobilize $300 billion annually for climate adaptation and mitigation. The urgency is undeniable: environmental shocks, pandemics, and conflicts continue to destabilize economies and expose the inadequacy of current financing mechanisms.
The UN’s Multidimensional Vulnerability Index has emerged as a promising tool to address these disparities. By accounting for exposure to economic and climate shocks, it could improve access to concessional finance and redefine vulnerability as a shared global condition rather than a regional one. For African states, the index represents both a technical advance and a political instrument that strengthens their negotiating position in climate and financial forums.
Regional and continental initiatives also illustrate a growing pragmatism. The African Continental Free Trade Area aims to deepen intra-African trade, expand industrial capacity, and reduce dependence on commodity exports. Blended finance mechanisms are making infrastructure projects more bankable without sacrificing national ownership. The Compact with Africa, launched under Germany’s G20 presidency in 2017, provides a platform for aligning reforms with private investment, though results remain uneven. Tunisia’s foreign minister cited the work of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, which supports countries in developing tools for investment and debt management. Together, these efforts signal that Africa is no longer waiting for multilateral systems to repair themselves. Yet the political economy of reform remains complex. It is easier to announce change from a podium than to legislate it at home. The menu of proposals—which includes wealth taxes, new credit systems, climate funds, and debt swaps—is extensive. The challenge lies not in the absence of ideas but in how to prioritize among them. The essential question is which measures will deliver the most immediate and equitable impact for those most in need.
A New Vision for Development Coauthored by Africa
At this year’s General Assembly, Africa spoke not as a recipient of global charity but as a coauthor of a new vision for international development. The message was consistent: fairness cannot coexist with dependency, and partnership cannot thrive under coercion. The legitimacy crisis facing the UN is not only about the failure of aid or the shortfall in financing—it is about meaning and purpose. The world now faces a choice: preserve a broken system built on conditional generosity, or commit to a new compact grounded in justice, reciprocity, and shared responsibility. African leaders have already made their preference clear. The question is whether the rest of the world is prepared to listen and act accordingly.
