How should development practice (and institutions) approach the coming reforms in the aid sector?

The past is gone. And there are lots of reasons not to mourn for its reinstatement.

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I: Change is really hard

Last month I briefly returned to Washington, DC during the annual Spring Meetings. Of course this year’s meetings took place at a critical juncture that will define the future of international development. To paraphrase a famous Italian, we live in a time when the old model of foreign aid that largely cultivated aid dependency in most recipient countries is on its last legs, but the new model is yet to be born: now is the time of great uncertainty and attendant risks.

The goal of this post is to try and synthesize the emerging ideas of potential pathways forward in a world where (1) the resources available for aid are drastically reduced; and (2) the intellectual scaffolding that propped up the old aid model has lost legitimacy.

In Washington, it was clear that the defenders of the …