The future of Australian aid

It has been just over a year since the Trump administration's dramatic cuts to America's foreign aid budget and the shuttering of USAID. With other major donors also slashing their aid programs — potentially causing 22 million additional avoidable deaths by 2030 — what does this mean for Australia's development efforts? A new OECD review of Australia's aid program provides a timely opportunity to assess the health and future direction of Australian development assistance. The Lowy Institute's Roland Rajah and Grace Stanhope are joined by Cameron Hill from the Development Policy Centre at the Australian National University and Bridi Rice, CEO of Development Intelligence Lab, to discuss the global aid landscape, Australia's comparative advantage in the region, and the tensions between short-term transactional wins and long-term transformational development. More episodes of the Lowy Institute's podcasts are available on your favourite podcast apps, including Spotify , YouTube and Apple . Follow the Lowy Institute on our website , X , Instagram or LinkedIn . Follow Roland Rajah on X and LinkedIn . Follow Grace Stanhope on LinkedIn .

You can listen to The future of Australian aid online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

The future of Australian aid is an episode from Lowy Institute by Lowy Institute.

This episode is 26:20 long.

This episode was published on Feb 17, 2026.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from Lowy Institute when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.