Mercy Corps Statement on the Global Partnerships Conference: Global Talks Hosted by the UK Risk Excluding Those Most in Need

May 18, 2026

This week’s Global Partnership Conference in London risks neglecting the most urgent challenges facing international development if it does not grapple with the realities facing communities living in fragile and conflict-affected states. Such places are already the epicenters of extreme poverty and humanitarian crises, and are now under intensifying pressure from conflict, climate volatility, global price shocks and shrinking aid budgets. This conference will be a failure if it does not focus on ways to help these countries reduce fragility and build resilience. 

The focus of the conference and recent UK government strategy has emphasised the critical role of private capital, investment partnerships, and a shift from “donor” to “investor”. While private finance has a significant role to play in development, particularly in job creation, infrastructure, climate adaptation, and market systems, it will not fill the gap left by cuts to ODA, especially in fragile and conflict-affected states. 
 

Selena Victor, Senior Director of Policy & Advocacy at Mercy Corps, said: 

“This conference rests on a very particular vision of development which focuses on the role of private sector and development finance. Yet, this approach is designed for middle-income and stable contexts, with extreme limitations in fragile and conflict-affected places.  

“The conference should be considered a failure if it does not grapple with the escalating challenges facing the more than a billion people living in fragile and conflict affected places, including the 50 million people expected to be driven into acute hunger as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz continues to drive up prices for food, transport, water and critical fertilizer for families and farmers already struggling to cope.” 

With a likely historic El Niño threatening to deepen droughts, floods, and food insecurity, the war in Iran sending ripple effects through global energy, fertilizer and food markets, and major donors cutting aid, it is vital that the Global Partnerships Conference be judged not by how much private finance it is able to leverage for stable markets, but by whether it can deliver in the places and contexts where poverty, hunger and insecurity are increasingly concentrated.

 

For more information, please contact: