Reducing international aid signals a collapse in the idea that wealthy states owe it to help vulnerable countriesThe writer is an academic and researcher. He is also the author of Development, Poverty, and Power in Pakistan, available from RoutledgeThe global development system is not merely under strain; it is approaching a state of structural collapse. Under the Trump administration, the US has cut more than 80% of its international aid funding. If the global development system is to survive, it must be fundamentally restructured to become more agile, more locally driven and more locally accountable. Predictive systems can miss realities that local actors understand intuitively, and tools designed in donor countries without local input can reinforce external control.