
Raj M. Desai: Rethinking Development Finance in an Age of Shrinking Aid
From DevelopmentAid Dialogues by Hisham Allam
December 3, 2025 · 32 min · Season 3 · Episode 8
About this episode
This episode discusses the implications of shrinking aid on countries reliant on it, featuring insights from Professor Raj M. Desai.
International development is heading into a crunch moment, and this episode with Professor Raj M. Desai puts numbers, mechanisms, and politics around what “shrinking aid” really means for countries that still depend on it—especially in the context of USAID cuts and the growing push toward blended finance. In this episode of DevelopmentAid Dialogues, podcast host Hisham Allam speaks with Desai, a leading scholar of foreign aid and development finance at Georgetown University and the Brookings ...
People in this episode
Host: Hisham Allam
Guest: Raj M. Desai
Topics covered
- development finance
- shrinking aid
- foreign aid
- blended finance
- international development
Keywords
- development finance
- shrinking aid
- USAID cuts
- blended finance
- foreign aid
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Georgetown University, Brookings, USAID
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