Reality of Aid | A Pre-eminent Southern-led North/South on Reforming Aid Policies and Practices

When Aid Colonizes, Displaces, and Kills: Statement of Reality of Aid-Asia Pacific on Palestine

Reality of Aid Report 2023

On its 30th anniversary, The Reality of Aid Network (RoA) publishes its Reality of Aid Report 2023, marking 30 years of reporting back on aid and development and encapsulating key shifts in the global aid landscape.

Reality of Aid Report 2020/2021

With the theme of aid in the context of conflict, fragility and the climate emergency, The 2020/2021 Reality of Aid Report aims to contribute to the overall body of work on the subject. The Triple Nexus tackles how humanitarian action, development and peace efforts intersect to improve development interventions, especially in conflict affected and fragile states.

On South-South Cooperation: Assessing its political relevance and envisioning a future beyond technical cooperation

South-South Cooperation (SSC) has been regaining traction in recent years due to setbacks in North-South Cooperation. Development partnerships among Southern states aim to be complementary to traditional cooperation and is rooted on horizontality, solidarity, and respect for national sovereignty and ownership. SSC offers itself as a modality that attempts to shift away from ineffective development cooperation practices. One of its core principles, which came from the Bandung Era, is to forward the decolonization agenda. With this, SSC has the potential to leverage a kind of development cooperation that is linked with peoples’ demands, values, and lived realities. Despite SSC’s potential […]

When Aid Colonizes, Displaces, and Kills: Statement of Reality of Aid-Asia Pacific on Palestine

After decades of aggression between Israeli occupation forces and the Palestinian people, the past weeks witnessed relentless attacks on civilians and wide-scale human rights violations. Driven by their right to self-determination, Palestinian armed resistance forces have long fought for their independence and rights over their land. Israel’s response remains violent, launching bombs, air strikes and dangerous chemicals on its occupied territories, detaining civilians, cutting off access to water, power, food and medical supplies, forcing millions of Palestinians to leave their homes, and blocking humanitarian assistance. The attacks have resulted in deaths of thousands of civilians and a humanitarian crisis for […]

Civil Society Demands the World Bank Group to Rethink the Direction of its Evolution

The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group (IMF-WBG) are gearing to reform themselves as a response to heightening crises of our generation. At the Annual Meetings last 9 to 15 October, the institutions brought together states, multilateral institutions, IFIs, and civil society to discuss critical matters on delivering impact in the context of a world experiencing a polycrisis. With the theme, “Global Action, Global Impact”, the IMF-WBG seeks to continue its work in many arenas of development. One of the prominent discussions in the Annual Meetings is the WBG’s Evolution Roadmap. As a response to the widening cracks […]

Nowhere in the Middle: APRCEM NGO Constituency on the outcomes of the SDG Summit

At the midpoint of the Agenda 2030, only 15% of the targets are on track. In the Asia-Pacific, this translates to compounded impacts of the pandemic on health and economic systems, debt burden on the poorest, worsening conflict, deterioration of social protection systems, violation of basic human rights, and incapacity to address the climate crisis. Recognizing that the world is nowhere near in achieving its sustainable development targets, the SDG Summit is convened by the United Nations (UN) to accelerate action towards the goals with solutions outlined in Our Common Agenda. However, civil society has noted that these frameworks continue […]

“How do we respond to the changing aid landscape?”: The Reality of Aid debates on the future of aid

In a world afflicted by multifaceted and overwhelming global challenges, civil society organizations working on aid and development cooperation continue to grapple with the question, “ How can we effectively respond to the changing aid landscape?”

Aid Observatorio

Welcome to the Aid Observatorio What is the CSO Aid Observatorio? The Aid Observatorio is a CSO-initiated and maintained database of development projects funded through the Official Development Assistance (ODA) or funded by International Finance Institutions (IFIs). It offers on ground narratives and evidence-based analysis of development projects in fragile nations and developing countries. The impacts of the projects are monitored and evaluated in terms of Development Effectiveness Principles and of the following areas: human […]

Explore the Aid Observatorio

HIGHLIGHTS

Crossroads of Crises: Reality of Aid – Asia Pacific Opening Statement at the 59th Asian Development Bank Annual Meeting

The Asian Development Bank has been a key development player in Asia and the Pacific region. Over the last 59 years, the Bank invested in many projects across the region, some which have cost people’s rights in the name of regional development. Today, Asia and the...

The reality of aid: Championing an accountable, rights-based, socially just development cooperation

Across Asia and the Pacific, development challenges manifest differently, but remain interconnected. Countries are in a very deep – almost impossible to recover from – external debt. The cost to live is in an upward trend with the prices of basic services and...

Cracks in the Wall: How Flood Control Funds Sink into Corruption While Filipinos Drown

This piece is writtten by Jennifer Guste of the Council for People’s Development and Governance (CPDG), a member of Reality of Aid - Asia Pacific. On 2 September 2025, international reports documented President Marcos Jr.’s visit to Bulacan, where he grew visibly...

Pixels of Resistance: Palestine and the struggle that connects us all

Across social media platforms, countless videos show Palestinians appealing for food, aid, and basic necessities. Each post and livestream reveals a harsh reality — that the horrors of war are no longer distant; they unfold before us, right in our hands. This digital...

Flooded by Corruption, Drowned in Debt: Standing with the Filipino People

The Philippines is struck by an average of 20 tropical cyclones each year, with eight to nine making landfall. Nearly 70% occur between July and October, and at least five are destructive, according to the Asian Disaster Reduction Center. Located in the Pacific Ring...

Their Struggle, My Struggle: Youth in Resistance Across Asia Pacific

This piece is written by Francesca Villanueva, an intern of Reality of Aid - Asia Pacific. I am a child of the Asia Pacific, raised in a region that has lived too long with the weight of crisis. We are used to storms and floods; to governments that promise and fail;...