Why the World Turned on NGOs

Essay

Why the World Turned on NGOs

From powerbrokers in the ’90s to pariahs today. September 8, 2025, 12:07 AM Comment icon View Comments ( )

A child walks across a dirt road carrying a canister of water.

The Fall 2025 cover of Foreign Policy magazine with an illustration of a tattered flag with a globe waving from a makeshift stick flagpole/

This article appears in the Fall 2025 print issue: The End of Development. Read more from the issue .

This article appears in the Fall 2025 issue of Foreign Policy . Subscribe now to read the full issue and support our journalism.

In just nine months, the Trump administration has laid waste to the development landscape, dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and slashing nearly the entire U.S. foreign