The world of aid is being rewritten. Climate disruption, technological acceleration, demographic pressure, and a rapidly changing geopolitical order are converging to reshape how humanity responds to crisis. The Future of Aid 2040 – Scenarios Report offers a bold foresight exploration of this transformation, charting four plausible futures that challenge the assumptions underpinning today’s humanitarian system. Drawing on the insights of nearly 900 practitioners and thought leaders from across the globe, the report maps the complex interplay between global trends and system-specific drivers: from localisation and financing shifts to governance, legitimacy, and the ethics of intervention.
Each scenario represents a distinct trajectory for the future of aid: not a prediction, but a narrative lens through which to test strategies, question institutional reflexes, and identify the “no-regrets” actions that can strengthen resilience across multiple possible worlds. In some futures, the aid system fragments under geopolitical competition and digital authoritarianism; in others, it reinvents itself through solidarity networks, local leadership, and community sovereignty. These scenarios invite organisations and decision-makers to move beyond short-term operational planning toward strategic adaptation, positioning foresight as a tool for transformation rather than speculation.
More than an exercise in imagination, Future of Aid 2040 is a framework for anticipatory governance, helping actors across the humanitarian and development sectors to understand the deep forces shaping our collective capacity to care, respond, and rebuild. It reminds us that the future of aid will not be written by institutions alone, but by the people and communities reimagining what solidarity means in an era of turbulence. The report calls for courage: to rethink what aid is for, who defines it, and how it can evolve into a system grounded in justice, reciprocity, and shared responsibility.
Learn more: iaran.org/future-of-aid