The year 2025 was marked by an unprecedented decline in international solidarity and development aid. The dismantling of USAID by Donald Trump, representing more than $60 billion less in aid to recipient countries, is the main symptom of this decline. More broadly, democracies are becoming weaker, including in Europe, many are succumbing to conservative nationalism, international law is being flouted in several war zones, and human rights and multilateralism are being challenged.
Yet globalisation has shrunk the world and made us interdependent, and when fundamental rights are violated on the other side of the globe, the whole edifice trembles… The decline in international solidarity is already having catastrophic consequences on access to healthcare, inequalities, women’s rights, the plight of refugees and stateless persons, the environment and peace on every continent.
On the occasion of International Human Rights Day on 10 December, Cartooning for Peace is mobilising for international solidarity in a campaign of cartoons in partnership with Coordination Sud.
‘Our global solidarity is essential to defending human rights’
Statement by Education International on International Human Rights Day
Adene (France)
Rodrigo (Portugal)
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‘Inequality has reached alarming levels: more than half of those living in extreme poverty (around 380 million people) live in countries that are priority recipients of official development assistance.’
Press release from Coordination Sud, ‘2026 budget: the government strikes again, international solidarity in its death throes’
Ramsés (Cuba)
Solís (Mexico)
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‘The decline in activities and the halting of projects caused by funding cuts have considerable human consequences: increased deaths and deteriorating living conditions, reduced access to basic services, a decline in civic space, worsening inequalities, and increased instability in territories, which risks leading to a proliferation of crises and conflicts.’
Coordination SUD (2025), International solidarity in peril: Impacts of budget cuts in official development assistance, Study, Paris, November.
Custódio (Brazil)
Gado (Tanzania)
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‘International solidarity is going through historically dark times.’
Jean-François Corty, President of Médecins du Monde, associate researcher at the Institute for International and Strategic Relations
Aurel (France)
Boligán (Mexico)
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‘In these difficult times, we must (…) reaffirm our values, those of shared humanity (…). A human life does not count for nothing because it is beyond our borders.’
Esther Duflo, 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics
Dubovsky (Ukraine)
Zehra Ömeroglu (Türkiye)
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