With the closure of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in July 2025, many in the international development sector have worked hard to pivot, using their skills and experience in different ways to continue to improve lives. In the Future of Development Work series, SFS faculty weigh in on the ways in which international development professionals can continue to thrive and build careers of impact.
Sara Batmanglich is currently a senior operations officer in the Fragility, Conflict and Violence Group at the World Bank, where she coordinates the Bank’s Risk and Resilience Assessments. She was previously a peace and conflict advisor in the Crises and Fragility Unit with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and led on the flagship States of Fragility report. As an adjunct professor in the Global Human Development program at SFS, she co-teaches a course on conflict and development.
During the weeks and months of 2025 when the international development sector grappled with shock and anxiety and worried what the slashing of aid would portend for the millions of people who depend on it for daily existence, my particular corner of the development sector—which focuses on fragility, conflict and violence (FCV)—had an additional concern. Namely, what effects would reduced budgets, reduced political will and reduced interest in supporting the hard (even in the best of times) work on prevention and peacebuilding have on FCV globally? One does not have to be an expert to guess the answer, and I believe we will see the negative effects of this moment on FCV trends for years to come.
However, with that acknowledged, the time for debating and bemoaning those effects and the nuances and specificities of them is over. Now it is time for action. This requires asking ourselves tough questions about what we feasibly can expect that future to look like; calibrating those expectations with this new reality without losing a healthy degree of ambition; and working out a game plan for how this future can be realized without sacrificing the central tenets of development—the most important of which is to improve people’s lives.
Regardless of all the expostulation over the past year, the truth is that we do not know where the aid sector will end up. But we do know a few things. First, something will come next; the sector will not cease to exist, so those who are interested in pursuing development as a career should remain so. Second, we know that whatever comes next will require a shift in mindset and skillset that is almost as profound as the recent shifts in policies and budget. And third, we can tell that the space in which development operates will most likely undergo significant changes to its architecture and delivery modalities.
None of these are bad things in and of themselves, and the majority of us working in development for many years would be the first to admit a range of problems and the need for reform. In fact, an entire subset of the sector—aid effectiveness—exists in recognition of the need to do better and has consistently churned out reports with lists of recommendations that no one ever fully followed, despite their undeniable logic.
If the future of development is about implementing even just a handful of those recommendations on how we can deliver better and more efficiently with greater impact and sensitivity to culture—as well as conflict and political economy dynamics— while supporting state and local institutions in equal measure and avoiding doing harm, then our entire of community of practice will breathe a sigh of relief and will welcome the future with eagerness.
But these good ideas—built on decades of research, evidence and experience—could very easily turn into bad results if people who are not aware of that impressive body of knowledge or, critically, the values and aspirations of development, are at the helm of this future.
“Something will come next; the sector will not cease to exist, so those who are interested in pursuing development as a career should remain so.”
With this in mind, the success of development as a sector and even as a concept will, in many ways, rely on the next generation of policymakers and practitioners. This generation will need: to be equipped with understanding lessons from the past without being beholden to them; to innovate, including all the promises and perils that technology offers; and to be multisectoral systems-thinkers who understand the ways things are entwined in an interconnected world. They must be equally adept at problem analysis as at generating solutions. They will have to be bridge-builders and technical diplomats, working across public and private sectors, with governments and with civil society. And, sadly, I believe they will also need a good grasp of how fragility, conflict and violence is one of the biggest spoilers to reducing poverty and achieving development aims.
It is a tall order, and the stakes are high. The good news, though, is that no one is born with all of this. The essential ingredient is people who are intellectually curious, passionate and committed to helping others. The rest of these skills can be taught, lessons shared and passed on, experience gleaned. While the future might appear relatively murky in many ways, when I think of this next generation and what they will be able to achieve, I do feel hope.