Crucial moments and uncertain times: looking ahead to 2026

It goes without saying that 2025 was a tough year for everyone.  

No-one has felt this more keenly than poor and marginalised people around the world, who have lost access to health, education and women’s rights programmes, to name just a few. What’s equally disappointing is that cuts to ODA have not been counter-balanced by ambitious action to explore wider financing sources, or to protect rights in the context of the global rights rollback.  

Looking forward then, what are the reasons to be cheerful in 2026? Where are the opportunities and where and how can Bond members align to continue to push for a better, more inclusive and more equal world?  

Firstly, a big moment will be the UK-hosted conference on the future of development cooperation, expected to be held in spring 2026. This will be an important moment to bring together governments, civil society, philanthropy, the private sector and other key actors to discuss how the development cooperation system needs to evolve given the changing landscape.  

Bond and our members have always been clear on what this conference needs to do to be a success, including ensuring that voices of local civil society organisations in the global majority world are front and centre, and that the conversation considers the wider sources of financing for development, including debt, tax and illicit flows, and  tangible progress towards supporting locally led development.  

Secondly, the UK-hosted conference on illicit financial flows will be held in June, identifying concrete action that the international community can take to this challenge. Bond welcomes this summit, as illicit finance impacts people both here in the UK and in low- and middle-income countries, and it’s a problem in which the UK plays an outsized role. Africa alone loses almost $89bn annually due to illicit finance, more than it receives in ODA, so reform cannot come soon enough.  

Third, the UK will take over the G20 Presidency towards the end of the year. The UK’s G20 Presidency will offer another key opportunity to advance thinking on wider sources of public financing and advance systemic reforms that matter for development. Bond is preparing to act as the C20 for this summit, coordinating civil society in the UK and globally. We will be working to push for an ambitious agenda, together with our allies in civil society organisations around the world.  

Beyond the big external moments, we know that many of our members are engaged in a significant process of rethinking and transforming their role. For many years now, our members have been transforming in order to transfer funding and decision making to partners in the global majority world. This is a trend that is being accelerated by the context in which we find ourselves. It is difficult work, and Bond is here to support our members in this transition, through a combination of peer learning opportunities, practical operational support, and convening and thought leadership. We will be continuing to run events and convenings to support our members in rethinking their finance and operations, mergers, HR and all the practical operational issues we know they are grappling with every day.  

Finally, we know that many of our members are rethinking how they engage with the public. Bond’s new strategy, which is shortly to be finalised, has identified the need to build public support and make the existing degree of support more visible to decision makers as a key priority. We’ve been working with a small group of our members to develop and implement a workplan along these lines, and while we’re not yet fully resourced to deliver this, we’ll be scaling up our fundraising for this area in the coming months. Please do get in touch with us if you’d like to be more involved in this work.  

We know the next year will be tough for many of our members, especially with UK ODA cuts really starting to bite from April and the shockwaves of the US cuts continuing to reverberate around the world. We know that many of you are having to rethink your teams, your strategies, your finances and more, and are working hard to do this in a way that supports your commitments to anti-racism and locally led development.  

It’s important to remember that we are in this together, that there is a wealth of knowledge and wisdom in our network to help support you in these efforts. We know we will be stronger and more effective if we do this work together.  

And that togetherness is honestly what gives me the most reason to be cheerful in 2026. So thank you to all our members, staff, allies and partners for that.