InterviewOECD aid chief warns against cuts to int’l relief amid rising global crises

Carsten Staur, chair of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC), speaks during an interview with The Korea Times in Seoul, Monday. Courtesy of Korea International Cooperation Agency

International development faces its most serious test in decades, as leading donor nations cut back official aid budgets even as climate disasters, regional conflicts and health emergencies fuel rising demand for assistance worldwide.

Carsten Staur, chair of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC), urged global players to act quickly to reverse this trend.

“We need to turn this around. This is not an acceptable situation, given all the problems that the world is in. It’s not easy to fill it again, or to take the downward trajectory and make it positive, but we need to do that,” Staur said during an interview with The Korea Times, in Seoul on Monday.

The OECD DAC is an international forum of 33 major donor countries. It is responsible for monitoring official development assistance (ODA), setting standards for development cooperation and conducting peer reviews of member nations. Korea joined DAC in 2010.

Staur, a Danish diplomat with extensive experience in multilateral diplomacy, has chaired the committee since March 2023.

According to OECD data, ODA from DAC member countries fell 7.1 percent in real terms (adjusted for inflation) in 2024, marking the first decline in six years. The volume is expected to decrease by a further 9-17 percent in 2025 compared with 2024 — a concerning trend for global aid.

Staur acknowledged that pressing domestic challenges partly explain why governments are cutting aid, but he warned that short-term savings could come at a much higher long-term cost. He emphasized that ODA should be seen not as charity but as a strategic investment in global stability and resilience.

“We need to find ways where we can persuade our members and other providers to increase their ODA again. And that calls for a lot of analysis and also understanding why ODA is not just a charity,” he said. “It’s a very important part of international collaboration, because ODA opens up so many other kinds of cooperation.”

Given the uncertainty being expressed by major traditional donors, reviving the ODA funding system faces big challenges.

In Europe, countries are increasingly prioritizing defense spending in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, while U.S. President Donald Trump’s drastic cuts to foreign aid have unsettled the international development community.

Regarding European nations, Stuar emphasized that it is not a matter of choosing between aid and defense, saying, “Europe should not give up its long-term global aspirations because it is faced with short-term — hopefully short-term — regional threats from Russia.”

On Washington, Staur struck a cautious tone.

“On the U.S., we’re still very much in the 'wait and see.' I don’t know where the U.S. will end up on this,” he said.

At the same time, the DAC chair stressed that the challenge is not only about maintaining ODA volumes but also about ensuring effectiveness.

“We see fragmentation. We see aid being invested in many more countries in smaller amounts — less strategic, more projects than programs. And between donors, we see a lack of coordination.”

To address that lack, he called for stronger collaboration between traditional DAC donors — including the European Union nations, the United States, Canada and Australia — and emerging providers in Asia, Latin America and the Arab world.

The interview took place on the sidelines of the annual Seoul ODA International Conference on Monday, which brought together officials from donor countries and recipient governments, along with scholars. Staur delivered a keynote speech and also participated in a high-level session of the Busan Global Partnership Forum, held Tuesday through Wednesday.

Staur highlighted Korea’s expanding role in international development.

“The fact that you have that wide range of participants here, I think, is a strong signal that you are leading the concept of development cooperation, which are joint efforts and partnerships,” he said.

Staur touted Korea’s journey from an aid recipient in the 1950s and 1960s to a major donor country and one of the world’s top economies.

“I have been impressed by the travel that Korea has done,” he said. “It’s showcasing that it’s not just words, not just statistics; it’s something that actually can be done if you put your mind to it.”

The DAC chair also expressed hopes that Korea would expand the multilateral dimension of its international cooperation programs beyond bilateral efforts.

“One thing that has been clear from the peer review was that there was a lot of emphasis that you could do more on the multilateral front, working with multilateral development banks, working with the U.N. system and with international organizations.”