In this episode of The World We Got This, host Esau Williams explores how international development is being reshaped as governments cut budgets, multilateral institutions restructure, and aid becomes increasingly tied to national interest.

Recorded in the wake of the International Development Committee’s inquiry into UK aid, the discussion brings together leading scholars to unpack what these shifts mean for the world’s most vulnerable communities.

Joining the conversation are Professor Andy Sumner (King’s College London), Dr Eduardo Ortiz Juárez (UNDP and King’s), and Professor Naomi Hossain (SOAS), who offer a global perspective on shrinking aid budgets, the future of multilateralism, accountability, and the moral case for development cooperation. Together, they ask whether aid is ending, transforming, or simply being redefined - and who stands to lose if it is.

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When you pick up a packet of food in the supermarket, you can see the calories, protein and fibre listed clearly. But there’s one ingredient you’ll never find on the label, even though it’s essential to producing almost everything we eat: water.

And not just the water you can see in a juicy tomato or crisp lettuce, but the vast, hidden volumes used to grow crops, feed animals and process food.

Globally, agriculture accounts for around 72 per cent of annual freshwater consumption. Every burger, avocado and cup of coffee carries an invisible price tag measured in litres of water. Yet most of us rarely think about it. Should we?

In a special edition of our podcast, Ben Haines dives deep into these invisible waters...

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In March 2021, Seoul woke up under a thick yellow haze - the worst dust storm in a decade. South Korea blamed China, who promptly blamed Mongolia. Fingers were pointed, narratives emerged, and what seemed like a weather event quickly became a diplomatic one.

Since then, dust storms have continued to blight the region, and have emerged as a source of continual transborder tension.

Joining Esau in this episode, Dr Thomas White, co-author of the article Foul Weather Friends? The Transnational Politics of Dust Storms Between China and Mongolia, and Prof Andreas Baas, a physical geographer with expertise in desertification and land degradation.

Together, they unpack how dust storms stir up more than sand - touching on nationalism, environmental diplomacy, and the politics of green solutions - questions that resonate far beyond the Gobi Desert.

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