Aid–Diplomacy Mergers and the Future of Global Security

Speaker: Rachel George
For years, development agencies have expanded, perceived as complements to national security with support for their autonomous administration. Today, however, issues of humanitarian aid and development are seen as increasingly linked to concerns about national security and politics, while aid skepticism is growing. The fruits of this shift were made all too clear when, in July 2025, the United States under the second Donald Trump administration merged its Agency for International Development (USAID) into its Department of State, echoing a similar move unfolding in other western donor countries. The merger in the U.S. solidified a global trend following similar mergers in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Norway, Denmark and New Zealand. Indeed, around the world over the past thirty years, many of the world’s wealthiest countries have merged their aid and diplomacy agencies. Although mergers are trending, are they helping countries advance their security goals? While the U.S. merger is still unfolding with many of its results yet-to-be seen, other global merger experiences offer stories that collectively indicate lessons to be learned about the rising trend to merge development and diplomacy. This presentation presents research from a review of the twenty-year history of global affairs mergers, drawing on interviews with leaders, civil servants, and activists from around the world. Considering rising Chinese development investments, ongoing fallout from COVID-19, crises in Syria, Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine, climate change, and other global challenges, can development and diplomacy truly be integrated, or do these fields require distinction for their effective delivery? How might the U.S. consider the evidence from other aid-diplomacy mergers to inform its efforts to reform global affairs administration to address connected security and development challenges? This research explores the effects of recent mergers of aid and foreign policy agencies in the context of evolving global challenges and discusses the implications for foreign policy agendas moving forward.