International Cooperation in a world of Difference

The Ponte Vecchio in Florence, Italy. It is noted for the shops built along it; building shops on such bridges was once a common practice. Butchers, tanners, and farmers initially occupied the shops; the present tenants are jewellers, art dealers, and souvenir sellers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponte_Vecchio)

Science, Conscience and the Space in Between

As aid budgets shrink and politics harden, the real test for international cooperation lies in protecting civil society space between government, market and community: where civic space is generated and protected and where science meets conscience and societies keep their moral balance.

In an era of shrinking aid budgets and rising geopolitical uncertainty, the future of international development will be decided less by the size of our contributions and more by the strength of the spaces that connect us. Reviewing my own decade of reflections in this blog space offered me a timely reminder: cooperation flourishes not in the corridors of power but in the “in-between” world of civil society.

Civil society has always been more than a collection of NGOs. It is the vital arena where private interests meet public purpose, where informal initiative tempers formal authority, and where citizens hold both markets and governments to account. It occupies the dynamic space between profit and non-profit, policy and everyday practice, the governed and those who govern. When that space is open, societies adapt, innovate and retain their moral depth. When it is constrained,  by authoritarian control, donor conditionality or market capture, they lose both conscience and capacity for change.

Science, the disciplined search for understanding, provides the evidence and tools for solving problems. Conscience, the moral awareness of responsibility and consequence, ensures those tools serve human dignity. Together they form the twin foundations of civic space. Without science, conscience drifts into sentiment; without conscience, science risks becoming the servant of power.

Both are under strain. Across the world, civic actors face funding cuts, regulatory pressure and mistrust. Populist narratives dismiss expertise, while bureaucratic systems reward compliance over reflection. In development policy, the obsession with short-term results has crowded out moral debate. Aid has become more technical and less political, more managerial and less human. Reimagining international cooperation therefore means reclaiming the space between, the meeting ground of science and conscience, state and citizen, market and morality. This requires several shifts.

Invest in relationships
First, funders must invest in relationships, not merely results. Flexible, long-term partnerships allow civil society to learn, adapt and take risks, which is precisely what rigid logframes discourage.
Second, governments should recognise civic space as vital infrastructure to social progress as roads or energy grids. Without it, societies stagnate.
Third, scientific and technical cooperation must be anchored in ethics and participation. Evidence gains legitimacy only when communities help define both the questions and the answers.
Finally, the plural character of civil society: formal and informal, voluntary and professional, should be valued as an asset, not an anomaly. Its diversity is what keeps civil society alive and protects democracies against authoritarian rule.

Budget cuts, paradoxically, can bring clarity. They expose the illusion that solidarity can be outsourced through spending. When resources dwindle, values must deepen. Development cooperation should be measured not by the volume of aid but by the quality of mutual respect it fosters.

Science without conscience delivers clever systems that fail people. Conscience without science produces good intentions without impact. The future of cooperation depends on holding both together within a civil society strong enough to question, connect and imagine. That civic space, messy but essential, is where humanity learns to live responsibly with itself. Protecting it may be the wisest investment we can still make.

Full disclosure: text of this blog was generated with the help of ChatGPT with several prompts to reflect on all blog posts published here between 2012 and 2022, drawing lessons from it for the future of international development cooperation in a context of severe budget cuts and shrinking civic space - subsequently fine-tuned by me. This leaves the question: am I done with blogging? Possibly. Open to your suggestions how debate could be kept alive without in the end having computers talk to each other. My suggestion? Take your conversations off-line and bring them to the real world where they can be challenged, corrected and informed by real people's experience and strengthen relationship. This should be weaving a web of renewed global solidarity and mutual respect for capacities that together may effectively address common challenges.