By CID Staff
How a cross-university partnership is bringing urgently needed reporting to one of the biggest shifts in global development.
The global aid system is undergoing a once-in-a-generation transformation. Long-established pillars of foreign assistance are being reexamined: budgets are being cut, institutions restructured, and programs redesigned. What was once relatively stable, if imperfect, architecture of humanitarian and development aid is now marked by uncertainty and change. For communities around the world that rely on these flows for health care, education, food security, and basic protection, the consequences are not abstract. They are immediate, human, and profound.
At a moment when foreign aid is being fundamentally reimagined, the need for clear-eyed, on-the-ground storytelling has never been greater. Who is being affected? How are communities adapting? What new actors are stepping in—and with what motivations? And what does this transformation mean for the future of global cooperation?
This past year, the Harvard Center for International Development (CID) partnered with the University of British Columbia’s Global Reporting Program (GRP) to help answer those questions. By bringing five Harvard Kennedy School policy students, who are equipped with deep expertise in economics, governance, and international development, together with journalism students trained to report from the ground, the collaboration produced work that did more than document change. It connected lived experience to global structures of power, finance, and decision-making—at exactly the moment when those structures are being redefined.
A Crisis Hiding in Plain Sight
The transformation of foreign aid is one of the most consequential global stories of our time, and one of the least fully told. After a shutdown of USAID in February 2025, changes to bilateral aid agencies, multilateral institutions, and humanitarian organizations are reshaping everything from refugee assistance to disease surveillance. Yet much of the public conversation remains trapped in aggregate numbers and political talking points.
What often gets lost are the granular realities: clinics without medicines, schools without teachers, local NGOs scrambling to adapt, and governments recalibrating their partnerships as traditional donors pull back. These changes are not evenly distributed. They are felt most acutely in fragile contexts, where aid was never a luxury but a lifeline.
Understanding this moment requires more than policy briefs or breaking news headlines. It requires sustained reporting that traces cause and effect across borders and rigorous policy analysis that examines why these systems were built the way they were, how they’re evolving, and what comes next.
Bridging Journalism and Policy
UBC’s Global Reporting Program brings students together each year to create ambitious global reporting projects. Students spend months researching, building sources, and producing long-form journalism that actually matters. Past projects have sparked policy changes, triggered investigations, and won international awards.
At the Harvard Center for International Development (CID), our mission is to build a thriving world for all. Our students bring deep subject-matter expertise in economics, governance, political economy, and international development along with firsthand familiarity with the institutions and systems now being reshaped.
This year's collaboration brought both groups together with a focus on one theme: what’s happening to global aid. Mixed teams worked side by side to find under-covered stories, dig into power dynamics, and turn complex systems into narratives that work outside academic journals and policy memos.
The result was a genuinely interdisciplinary model. Policy students were not simply background researchers, and journalism students were not just storytellers at the end of the process. From framing questions to conducting interviews to shaping final outputs, both groups were embedded throughout the reporting lifecycle.
Victoria Pavan, HKS MPP '26
"As a policy student, GRP gave me the opportunity to gain reporting experience alongside journalism students and Emmy-winning journalists. During our field reporting in Jordan, our team was confronted with the realities of aid cuts and their consequences on vulnerable refugee communities as we engaged with government, NGO, and UN stakeholders."
Learning by Doing, Globally
For students, the partnership was as demanding as it is distinctive. The project began at the start of the academic year, with students conducting extensive literature reviews and meeting with leaders in the international development space, including former USAID Administrator Samantha Power, CID Executive Director Fatema Sumar, and former WHO Chief Communications Officer Gabby Stern.
Mixed teams of CID and UBC students then traveled to Cambodia, Jordan, and Lesotho over the winter break to conduct interviews and meet with a wide range of stakeholders. In Lesotho, the removal of USAID funding threw the country's healthcare system into crisis. In Cambodia, civil society has been fractured and the USAID role of democratizing watchdog was erased. In Jordan, two major refugee camps grapple with ongoing funding challenges and geopolitical changes in the region. The students grappled with ethical reporting, methodological rigor, and the practical realities of working across time zones, cultures, and disciplines.
Students were challenged to ask uncomfortable questions: Why was this system designed this way? Whose voices mattered—and whose didn’t? What happens when aid becomes less about solidarity and more about geopolitics?
Rather than offering easy answers, the project encouraged students to sit with complexity. Stories emerging from the collaboration explore not only what is changing as aid evolves, but also what is emerging: diaspora-led financing, private philanthropy, new state actors, and hybrid models that are redefining the relationship between development assistance and influence.
Isabelle Dina, University of British Columbia
"My time in the Global Reporting Program strengthened my understanding of what it means to report accurately and ethically. The program’s design taught me how to work under a tight deadline, without sacrificing complexity and depth in my research, interviewing and reporting. In the field, I learned to juggle multiple journalistic roles at once, from photographer to reporter. Since the program brings together students with varying expertise, I learned to collaborate in a team with diverse skill sets, perspectives and ideas. As a Global Reporting Program Fellow, I built confidence in my abilities as a reporter through the program’s hands-on teaching model."
Why This Work Matters
The GRP–CID partnership was built around a simple idea: research should inform not only policy, but public understanding. The students' work was not intended solely for classrooms or conferences. Their reporting is intended for broad audiences, with the goal of placing final investigative stories with major media partners so they reach policymakers, practitioners, and the public alike.
That focus on impact has shaped every stage of the work. Students learned to combine rigorous analysis with compelling storytelling, making complex policy issues accessible without sacrificing nuance. They also confronted the ethical responsibilities of reporting in communities that have long been shaped by foreign aid and the decisions of distant governments.
At a moment when governments are retreating from international assistance, there is a risk that not only funding disappears, but also the stories of the people most affected. By documenting the human consequences of these shifts, the partnership connects decisions made in donor capitals to lived experiences around the world while preparing a new generation of leaders to communicate complex global challenges with clarity, empathy, and accountability.
For both the GRP and CID, this collaboration represents a shared commitment to rigorous research, experiential learning, and public impact. As the global aid landscape continues to evolve, the stories these students produce will help shape how we understand this pivotal moment—and the choices that will define what comes next.
