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This week, we tally the numbers on foreign aid and it isn’t pretty. Also, Davos Man is spotted (again) and the rift between the West and the rest widens.

Top news

Davos man, ad nauseam: With slowing global growth, rising climate concerns, and tanking trust in governments and businesses, business and political elites converged on Davos this week to either get richer or save the world (or both). The theme of this year’s World Economic Forum annual meeting – “Rebuilding Trust” – is both highly relevant and a bit too on the nose. Six in 10 people think that government and business leaders are purposely trying to mislead people. Growing inequality isn’t helping: the wealth of the world’s five richest men doubled whilst 5 billion people became poorer since 2020, says Oxfam. Globally, men own about US$105 trillion more wealth than women, who earn roughly half what men earn for every US$1 in labour income. 🤦🏽‍♀️

UnaccommODAting: A shocking 30% of the US$210 billion in 2022 official development assistance was spent on Ukraine, supporting refugees in donor countries, or COVID-19, according to ONE’s analysis. Excluding that spending, aid decreased by nearly 4%. Donors allocated more than 10% of total ODA (US$22 billion) to the war in Ukraine. Donors spent a record 14.7% of aid on refugees in their own countries. Rather than increase ODA, donors are shifting money from other development priorities. That helps explain why aid to Africa decreased to its lowest proportion (25.6%) in two decades, whilst aid to Europe jumped 10 percentage points in 2022.

Growing rift: 27 African countries are publicly supporting South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. South Africa is accusing Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians. The case could widen a growing rift between developing countries and Western powers and undermine the moral authority and credibility of a system largely built by the West. Developing countries accuse Western powers of advocating for a rules-based order that they themselves often ignore. Israeli President Isaac Herzog asserted that “there is nothing more atrocious and preposterous” than the lawsuit. More than 20,000 people – including 10,000 children – have been killed in Gaza in Israel’s military response to Hamas terror attacks on 7 October. The UN is warning that “famine is imminent.”

Transmission over: Cabo Verde became the first sub-Saharan African country in 50 years to be declared malaria-free. The country has gone three years without a reported case of local transmission. Malaria killed 580,000 Africans in 2022, accounting for 95% of deaths globally. Local mosquitoes could not be reached for comment. 🦟

Deadly pissing match: 24 million children are at grave risk of falling victim to a “generational catastrophe” caused by war in Sudan. Two warring rival generals are to blame: Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Sudan’s army chief and de facto head of state, and General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, head of the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group. The two men (and yes, it’s always men) were once allies, working to overthrow Omar al-Bashir in 2019. But they had a falling out. Peace talks scheduled for this week collapsed because Dagalo had a... scheduling conflict. Apparently he had better things to do than help put an end to a nine-month long war that has killed over 12,000 people and driven 7.5 million from their homes. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Off to a meh start: As expected, Comoros President Azali Assoumani won reelection in the presidential vote held Sunday. Opposition parties, which had threatened to boycott the election, allege that the election was tainted by ballot stuffing and election fraud. Assoumani has strengthened his hold on power since taking over in a 1999 coup and many of his opponents are jailed or in exile. Comorians seemed unenthusiastic about the election: only 16.3% of eligible voters bothered to vote.

From the ONE Team

• David McNair joins Project Dandelion for a Twitter/X Spaces event to discuss what’s next after COP28. You can join starting at 12pm ET / 5pm GMT / 6pm CET / 8pm EAT on 20 January.
• Gayle Smith and David Miliband on the urgent need to make the global financial system work for the most vulnerable communities.
• Sara Harcourt summarises the troubling turn in aid spending.
• David McNair on what Davos reveals about the state of our society.
• When Mean Girls meets foreign aid.

The numbers

• 3.8% of health spending globally goes to low- and lower-middle income countries, home to 52% of the world’s population.
• 0: The number of women Azerbaijan appointed to its 28-member organising committee for the COP29 climate change summit.
• 14.5 million deaths and US$12.5 trillion in economic losses worldwide are likely by 2050 as a result of climate change.

Quote of the week

"It’s not only Israel on trial. South Africa is testing the west’s claim to moral superiority."

–Nesrine Malik, Guardian columnist

What you should read, watch, and listen to:

• The unofficial soundtrack to the Africa Cup of Nations. (Africa Is A Country)
• African migration trends to watch in 2024. (Africa Center for Strategic Studies)
• Sudan’s forgotten war. (Al Jazeera)
• It’s not all clear on COVID-19. (Fortune)
• A brewing carbon credit controversy in the DRC. (Climate Change News)
• How Spotify helped take Afrobeats global. (Rest of World)
• South Africa’s “Uber for cleaning” has an unpaid labour problem. (Rest of World)

A LOOK AHEAD

20 - 23 January: The 134 member states of the Group of 77 convene for the Third South Summit in Kampala, Uganda under the theme “Leave No One Behind.”

24 January: International Day of Education under the theme “Learning for Lasting Peace.”

24 January: UNESCO World Day for African and Afrodescendant Culture.

25 - 26 January: Meeting of the G20 working group on international financial architecture.

The ONE Campaign’s data.one.org provides cutting edge data and analysis on the economic, political, and social changes impacting Africa. Check it out HERE.

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