World leaders gathered in Seville this week for the U.N.’s International Conference on Financing for Development have an immense challenge before them. The hope originally was to find the additional money needed to reduce poverty, promote growth and fight climate change. Now, the worry is that matters may get even worse than they already are. Aid cuts have thrown critical health and humanitarian work into turmoil, and economic uncertainty and unsustainable debt burdens are draining government budgets. This means there’s no money left to deal with pandemics, violent conflict, and the climate crisis, which in turn could destabilize societies everywhere. No country will be safe.


