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Southeast Asia’s foreign assistance to fall more than $2bn next year
Development financing to Southeast Asia is expected to fall by more than $2bn in 2026 due to recent cutbacks by Western governments, according to a major Australian think tank.
The Sydney-based Lowy Institute predicted in a new report on Sunday that development assistance to Southeast Asia will drop to $26.5bn next year from $29bn in 2023. The figures are billions of dollars below the pre-pandemic average of $33bn.
Bilateral funding is also expected to fall by 20 percent from about $11bn in 2023 to $9bn in 2026, the report said.
The cuts will hit poorer countries in the regions hardest, and “social sector priorities such as health, education, and civil society support that rely on bilateral aid funding are likely to lose out the most”, the report said.
Cuts by Europe and the United Kingdom have been made to redirect funds as NATO members plan to raise defence spending to 5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in the shadow of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
The European Union and seven European governments will cut foreign aid by $17.2bn between 2025 and 2029, while this year, the UK announced it will cut foreign aid spending by $7.6bn annually, the report said.
The greatest upset has come from the United States, where earlier this year, President Donald Trump shut down the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and slashed nearly $60bn in foreign assistance. More recently, the US Senate took steps to claw back another $8bn in spending.
The Lowy Institute said governments closer to home, like China, will play an increasingly important role in the development landscape.
“The centre of gravity in Southeast Asia’s development finance landscape looks set to drift East, notably to Beijing but also Tokyo and Seoul,” the report said. “Combined with potentially weakening trade ties with the United States, Southeast Asian countries risk finding themselves with fewer alternatives to support their development.”
After experiencing a sharp decline during the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese overseas development assistance has started to bounce back, reaching $4.9bn in 2023, according to the report.
Its spending, however, focuses more on infrastructure projects, like railways and ports, rather than social sector issues, the report said. Beijing’s preference for non-concessional loans given at commercial rates benefits Southeast Asia’s middle- and high-income countries, but is less helpful for its poorest, like Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and East Timor.
As China and institutions like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank play a more prominent role in Southeast Asia, less clear is how Japan and South Korea can fill in the blanks, according to experts.
Grace Stanhope, a Lowy Institute research associate and one of the report’s authors, told Al Jazeera that both countries have expanded their development assistance to include civil society projects.
“[While] Japanese and Korean development support is often less overtly ‘values-based’ than traditional Western aid, we’ve been seeing Japan especially move into the governance and civil society sectors, with projects in 2023 that are explicitly focused on democracy and protection of vulnerable migrants, for example,” she said.
“The same is true of [South] Korea, which has recently supported projects for improving the transparency of Vietnamese courts and protection of women from gender-based violence, so the approach of the Japanese and Korean development programmes is evolving beyond just infrastructure.”
Tokyo and Seoul, however, are facing similar pressures as Europe from the Trump administration to increase their defence budgets, cutting into their development assistance.
Shiga Hiroaki, a professor at the Graduate School of International Social Sciences at Yokohama National University, said he was more “pessimistic” that Japan could step in to fill the gaps left by the West.
He said cuts could even be made as Tokyo ramps up defence spending to a historic high, and a “Japanese-first” right-wing party pressures the government to redirect funds back home.
“Considering Japan’s huge fiscal deficit and public opposition to tax increases, it is highly likely that the aid budget will be sacrificed to fund defence spending,” he said.
[Aljazeera]
The general secretary of the Confederation of African Football (Caf) has resigned amid a chaotic time for football on the continent
Veron Mosengo-Omba said in a statement he was retiring, but his departure comes during the fallout over decisions to strip Senegal of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) title and postpone the women’s tournament at the last minute.
These incidents have left Caf, the governing body for African football, battling a crisis of confidence.
Mosengo-Omba alluded to controversies faced during his tenure in his statement on Sunday.
“Now that I have been able to dispel the suspicions that some people have gone to great lengths to cast on me, I can retire with peace of mind and without constraint, leaving the CAF more prosperous than ever,” Mosengo-Omba, deputy to Caf president Patrice Motsepe, wrote.
The 66-year-old has been criticised for staying on as general secretary past the organisation’s mandatory retirement age of 63.
He has also been accused by some employees of creating a toxic atmosphere in the workplace, although an investigation after staff complaints cleared him of any wrongdoing.
Mosengo-Omba, who hails from the Democratic Republic of Congo but also holds Swiss nationality, was appointed general secretary in March 2021.
According to news agency Reuters, Caf’s competitions director, Samson Adamu, will take over as acting general secretary.
The governing body is awaiting a decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) on Senegal’s appeal against being stripped of the Afcon title.
Senegal is challenging Caf’s appeals body for overturning their 1-0 win over hosts Morocco in January’s Afcon final.
During the game, Senegal’s players left the field in protest when, with the score at 0-0, hosts Morocco were awarded a stoppage-time penalty.
When they returned after a delay of about 17 minutes, Morocco subsequently failed to score the spot-kick and Senegal netted an extra-time winner.
Following an appeal by the Moroccan FA (FRMF), Caf later ruled that Senegal had forfeited the match and Morocco were awarded a 3-0 victory.
(BBC)
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Heat Index likely to increase up to ‘Caution level’ at some places in the Western, Sabaragamuwa, Southern, Eastern, North-western, Northern and North-central provinces and in Monaragala district
Warm Weather Advisory
Issued by the Natural Hazards Early Warning Centre
Issued at 3.30 p.m. on 29 March 2026, valid for 30 March 2026.
The Heat index, the temperature felt on human body is likely to increase up to ‘Caution level’ at some places in the Western, Sabaragamuwa, Southern, Eastern, North-western, Northern and North-central provinces and in Monaragala district.
The Heat Index Forecast is calculated by using relative humidity and maximum temperature and this is the condition that is felt on your body. This is not the forecast of maximum temperature. It is generated by the Department of Meteorology for the next day period and prepared by using global numerical weather prediction model data.
Effect of the heat index on human body is mentioned in the above table and it is prepared on the advice of the Ministry of Health and Indigenous Medical Services.
ACTION REQUIRED
Job sites: Stay hydrated and takes breaks in the shade as often as possible.
Indoors: Check up on the elderly and the sick.
Vehicles: Never leave children unattended.
Outdoors: Limit strenuous outdoor activities, find shade and stay hydrated.
Dress: Wear lightweight and white or light-colored clothing.
Note:
In addition, please refer to advisories issued by the Disaster Preparedness & Response Division, Ministry of Health in this regard as well. For further clarifications please contact 011-7446491.
Despite driving his jeepney through some of Metro Manila’s busiest neighbourhoods on a daily basis, Arturo Modelo, 52, only takes home about a third of the 600 Philippine pesos ($10) he would normally earn, as thecost of fuel has soared in the Philippines and his profits have diminished as a result.
“I can’t even afford my kid’s lunch money,” he told Al Jazeera.
Leaning on his jeepney, Modelo explained how he joined two days of transport strikes in Manila on Thursday and Friday because he wanted “a deaf government to listen”.
Besides, he added, “you can’t really make a living on the road these days.”
The iconic jeepney, which emerged at the end of World War II when Filipinos repurposed old United States military jeeps to use as minibuses, is the cheapest and most common form of commuter transport in the Philippines.
Last week, jeepney owners staged a strike, which was followed by bigger demonstrations this week, as workers – from bus, taxi and minibus drivers to motorcycle taxi riders – representing nearly a dozen national transport groups joined the stoppage to protest rising fuel costs amid what they see as government inaction.
Thousands marched to the Presidential Palace on Friday, demanding price controls on petrol and diesel, scrapping fuel taxes, and tighter government regulation of the fuel industry.
The workers, who came together on Thursday and Friday under the No to Oil Price Hike Coalition, believe the government was too slow to act and had, for weeks, ignored their demands for price controls.
The No to Oil Price Hike Coalition also called out what it said was “American aggression” against Iran for the economic woes being felt in the Philippines.
“Filipinos didn’t start this war, don’t want any part of it, but are suffering because of it,” said Jerome Adonis, chairperson of the national workers’ group Kilusang Mayo Uno (May First Movement), who joined the strike.
“It’s like the United States also dropped a bomb on us,” Adonis said.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr declared a state of national energy emergency on Tuesday night, a first as the US-Israel war on Iran entered its fourth week.
The emergency decleration will remain in force for one year, and allows the government to more rapidly procure fuel and petroleum products and to take action against the hoarding, profiteering and manipulation of petroleum product supplies.
Marcos said he ordered the “implementation of the fuel and energy allocation plan and other energy conservation measures” as a means to tackle the price surge and promised the country would have “a flow of oil”.
The Philippines has been hit harder than its neighbours by price shocks since the US and Israel attacked Iran last month. It has among the highest diesel and petrol prices in Southeast Asia, slightly behind Singapore – a country with higher wages and a far higher standard of living – as the global oil shortage bites.
Singapore diesel, according to various reports, was about $2.7 per litre this week, while diesel in the Philippines went up to $2.3 per litre. Petrol was about $2.35 per litre in Singapore, while in the Philippines it was nearly $2 per litre. In contrast, Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand have recorded prices at about half of that at the fuel pumps.
As transport costs rise, students and workers in some cities in the country have been given free access to bus rides, and the government has started to provide a 5,000 peso ($83) subsidy to motorcycle taxi drivers and other public transport workers.
But for many, strike action is the only platform to express their concerns.
Transport union leaders said thousands had joined picket lines at 85 commuter terminals across the capital and major cities, while very few jeepneys could be seen on typically congested streets during the strike on Friday.
Authorities, however, said the two days of industrial action failed to paralyse Metro Manila, criticising the strike’s organisers and participants for inconveniencing commuters.
Asked on Friday if the government was considering directly subsidising fuel costs, similar to some countries in Southeast Asia, presidential spokesperson Claire Castro said the administration would study such a proposal.
Castro said the government had already doled out 2.5 billion pesos ($414m) in fuel subsidies this week to nearly 300,000 transport workers. However, advocacy groups say some 2 million people are likely working in the sector.
But transport workers also reported extremely long queues or missing out on the 5,000-peso payment due to their work details being absent from official government databases.
Jeepney driver Modelo, who spoke to Al Jazeera, said nobody from the transport terminal where he worked in Manila had received any government assistance.
Mody Floranda, national president of the transport workers group Piston, which initiated some of the strike action, said President Marcos Jr was favouring oil companies over Filipinos.
“Right now, Marcos can release an executive order for a price cap. He says it’s an emergency but acts like it isn’t,” said Floranda.
Presidential spokesperson Castro told reporters that the government’s swiftest action was “talking to manufacturing companies and other stakeholders not to increase the prices of goods”.
In a radio interview, Department of Energy (DOE) chief Sharon Garin said the agency aimed to please all stakeholders and that price caps imposed on fuel firms required the “right formula” to avoid harming businesses.
Experts attribute the high prices in the Philippines to the country’s dependence on oil imports and a deregulated market, plus excise taxes and a high value-added tax (VAT) of 12 percent.
Industrial economics Professor Krista Yu at De La Salle University in Manila said the dire situation was also due to the country’s “very limited domestic production and refining capacity”.
Yu said the government should prioritise securing “physical supply and reducing exposure to external shocks”.
According to the Energy Department, about 98 percent of the domestic crude oil supply is imported in the Philippines.
Emmanuel Leyco, chief economist at Credit Rating and Investors Services Philippines and the Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG), said that while the president is concerned about supply, “the public is already feeling the pain caused by unreasonable runaway prices.”
Leyco blamed the Oil Industry Deregulation Law of 1998 for the current situation, as it leaves fuel price adjustments in the hands of industry players.
“It is the main culprit. Even slight price adjustments cause serious problems because half the population is poor,” Leyco told Al Jazeera.
Faced with the likelihood of more strikes and growing public dissatisfaction, Marcos Jr separately signed a law on Wednesday allowing him to temporarily suspend excise taxes on fuel when crude oil exceeds a certain price per barrel for a month.
“Why not include the VAT and remove it with the excise taxes permanently?” asked opposition Kabataan Partylist lawmaker Renee Co.
“Both forms of taxation are regressive because they place the weight of commodity expenses on the people,” Co told Al Jazeera.
Co, along with other opposition lawmakers in Congress, had previously filed a bill to cancel both taxes, and on Wednesday filed a separate bill for state regulation of the oil industry.
Co was also among 50 members of Congress who passed a resolution calling for the “immediate cessation of hostilities in Iran, particularly an end to the military aggression instigated by the United States of America and Israel, in order to prevent further loss of life and humanitarian suffering”.
[Aljazeera]
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