The Big Flag Issues for Global Development Policy in 2026: Trump 2.0, China’s Status, Russia the spoiler, multi-alignment and 80% autocracy

Andy Sumner and Stephan Klingebiel argue that the old assumptions about who sets development policy norms, who pays, and who decides what counts as “cooperation” no longer seem to hold. 

It is clear 2026 will not be a routine year for global development cooperation. The US is now a deliberate norm-breaker under Trump 2.0, China is edging into high-income status while insisting it is still “developing”, close to 80 per cent of the population in low- and middle-income countries live under some form of autocracy, and Russia is selling long-term nuclear dependence as a development offer. At the same time middle powers from Brazil to the Gulf states are quietly turning that turmoil into leverage.

In a new IDOS Policy Brief we argue that these dynamics are not background noise but the core story that will shape cooperation in the next few years.  

The new context: Trump’s disruption moves to the global development architecture

In the US the principles of The New Washington Dissensus now shape concrete institutional change: the dismantling of USAID, an aggressive review of US engagement in multilateral organisations and the elevation of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and the Development Finance Corporation (DCF) as lean geoeconomic tools.  We argued that Trump 2.0 is less about withdrawal from the global development system and more about rewriting the rules in line with those principles. 

The warning for 2026 is simple. With the US hosting the G20, there is a real risk that Washington does not just step back from the development agenda but actively blocks a post-2030 conversation on sustainable development, marginalize the G20 Development Working Group and pressures others to follow suit.

So, that’s the context. What about the four flags?

Flag 1: China as “developing” great power

Officially, China is on track to cross the World Bank high-income threshold, which will trigger graduation from ODA (Official Development Assistance) eligibility within a few years. Politically, Beijing insists it remains a “developing country” and positions itself as a voice of the Global South. This dual status gives China an unusual ability to speak as both great power and peer.  China’s set of initiatives from the Belt and Road to the new Global Governance Initiative are filling the space opened up by ODA cuts and US hostility to Agenda 2030.  For OECD actors, this raises awkward questions: how to treat China in burden-sharing debates on climate and finance; how to respond to Beijing’s narrative that Western development offers are hypocritical or unreliable; and how to work with China on global public goods without collapsing into either confrontation or naïve alignment.

Flag 2: Russia’s spoiler role 

Russia has little to offer as a real development model. It has far more to offer as a spoiler. We underscore how arms sales, disinformation and nuclear energy deals give Moscow durable leverage in parts of the Global South, especially where Western actors face challenges related to political governance in the country (for example because of military coups) and few answers on long-term energy provision.  

Flag 3: The 80 per cent autocracy problem

We estimate around four-fifths of the population in low- and middle-income countries now live in electoral autocracies or closed autocracies.  That shift has profound implications in terms of norm contestation, institutional fragmentation and the weakening of liberal reference points. Our message for 2026 is that development cooperation will likely keep moving into a space where normative disagreement is the default, not the exception. Coalitions of autocratic states may try to water down human rights, transparency and accountability language in forum where they sit, and sometimes they will succeed.

Flag 4. Multi-alignment as the new normal for middle powers and smaller states 

A key strategic choice for many states including richer ones as well as countries of the global south is whether to become norm-takers or norm-makers.  This choice now plays out through multi-alignment: Brazil, Indonesia, Turkey, South Africa and Gulf states use financial resources, critical minerals and strategic geography to widen their menu of partners and instruments.  This is the space where like-minded coalitions can still shape outcomes. New platforms are needed that bring together such actors on more equal terms if traditional clubs fail adapt fast enough.

Our answer is cautious. Multi-alignment is here to stay. Issue-based coalitions around climate, health, food systems, digital public infrastructure and debt may matter more than big-tent declarations. Those coalitions will often be led or co-led by Southern middle powers, with OECD countries in supporting roles.

So, what? Early warning signals to look out for

We see a set of early warning signals in 2026 that sit across these set of issues. Watch how far the US goes in hollowing out development discussions in the G7 and G20. Track whether China’s new Global Governance Initiative gains traction as an alternative framing to a weakened or selectively applied Agenda 2030. Pay attention to attempts by autocratic and populist coalitions to strip human rights and accountability language from multilateral texts. Look at whether new “like-minded” formats emerge that can give political cover to more ambitious cooperation in a harsher geopolitical setting.

Taken together there is a simple but uncomfortable message: the old assumptions about who sets development policy norms, who pays, and who decides what counts as “cooperation” no longer seem to hold. It looks like 2026 will show how far the system can adapt before tension break out into the open.

Andy Sumner is Professor of International Development at King’s College, London, and President of European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes. He is also a Senior Non-Resident Research Fellow at the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research and the Center for Global Development; and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.

Stephan Klingebiel heads the research program “Inter- and Transnational Cooperation” at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS). He previously led the UNDP Global Policy Centre in Seoul (2019–2021) and the KfW Development Bank’s office in Kigali, Rwanda (2007–2011). He is also a guest professor at the University of Turin, Italy, a senior lecturer at the University of Bonn, and an Honorary Distinguished Fellow at Jindal University, India.

Photo by Karola G