The 7th Oxford Desert Conference was successfully held on March 20th and 21st, 2025, at the Department of Geography and Environment, University of Oxford. The department’s director, Professor Giles Wiggs, delivered the opening speech, highlighting how the unique conference evolved during the last 15 years and brought academicians, practitioners, and native people together to shape global desert development agendas.
On the second day of the conference, PENHA, in collaboration with the DoGE, organised a roundtable, titled Pastoral Systems and Reductions in Aid: Fallout from International Aid Cuts, Challenges and Prospects, focusing on the topical agenda of aid and how this can impact communities in desert ecosystems. The roundtable has brought excellent speakers with extensive experience working with humanitarian and development assistance in Africa, Asia and beyond. The speakers were Angela Raven-Roberts (PhD), Sergio Magnani (PhD), Ruta Nimkar (PhD Researcher) and Moffatt K. Ngugi (PhD). The Roundtable was chaired by Bereket Tsegay (PhD).
Dr. Angela Raven-Roberts has shared her more than three decades of experience working in humanitarian and development-focused aid by bringing specific cases of USAID and other donor interventions among the pastoral communities. In her speech titled ‘Implications and Challenges of USAID Cuts – Ethiopia‘, she gave a snapshot of the over 120-year diplomatic and development engagement of USAID in Ethiopia but emphasised how long such support would need to continue in assisting the communities to be self-reliant. Ethiopia with a total of $360 billion total support, Dr Raven-Roberts was critical of havoc created by the sudden stoppage of USAID megaproject/programmes support in Ethiopia, including the Resilience in Pastoral Areas (RiPA) with a fund of $33m, that potentially leave millions who rely on food aid and other support packages. She underscored the need for a new form of partnership and funding models.
Dr. Angela Raven-Roberts
Dr. Sergio Magnani has brought his decades-long experience working in West Africa.
Dr. Sergio Magnani
Ruta Nimkar (a PhD Researcher at the University of Oxford) has shared her experience working with several NGOs, consulting, dealing with multiple donors, and understanding how such a complex aid system works. Nimkar has emphasised the politics around aid and its usage works and the challenge between bringing tangible outcomes and genuine impacts rather than fulfilling donors’ technical and managerial requirements.
Ruta Nimkar (a PhD Researcher at the University of Oxford)
Dr Moffatt K. Ngugi has shared his reflections about the aid agenda and explained what worked and didn’t, specifically by bringing specific cases from East Africa. His reflection titled as ‘Personal reflections from a Development Professional: Exploring the implications of aid cuts and sustainable alternatives’, provided an overview of the existing contemporary humanitarian and development aid models, their relevance to the pastoral and agro-pastoral communities and the recent trends of aid cut by the USAID, the UK and EU donors. He highlighted that aid has contributed to providing emergency relief, multi-sectoral social service support, improving governance, policy reforms and capacity building, and creating employment opportunities and market linkages. However, he noted, such intervention has brought its own drawbacks, including the risk of long-term dependency, inefficient and misallocation of resources, and the political influence shaping aid distribution.
Dr Moffatt K. Ngugi
Highlighting the recent trends on aid, Dr Ngugi said the US administration, under the second presidency of Trump, aims to absorb USAID into the State Department; the UK’s redirection of funds from aid to defense; and the EU budget reallocation due to the mega crisis of Ukraine, Gaza and Syria. He calls for such shifts to lack an exit strategy and needs a gradual transition rather than abrupt aid cuts. He emphasized on looking at the following alternative models for development: Blended Finance & Impact Investments: Attracting private capital for social impact; Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs): Ensuring service delivery sustainability; Strengthening Local Economies: Supporting Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and Sovereign Wealth Funds & Infrastructure Investments (Examples from Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa). His presentation ended with these three key suggestions for aid to have a sustainable future:
The Way Forward – A Sustainable Future
- Aid should be a tool, not a permanent solution.
- Encourage regional economic integration and trade-based development.
- Strengthen governance and local ownership of development initiatives.
7th Oxford Desert Conference 2025 Participants
At this conference, over 64 speakers, researchers, and panellists shared their research outputs, findings, and reflections vital to the communities and their desert environments. Indigenous people from Mongolia and Kenya expressed their concerns regarding climate change, environmental challenges, livelihood resilience, and the role of indigenous knowledge systems in addressing these challenges.
PENHA expresses gratitude to the DoGE staff, especially Ariell Ahearn, Troy, and the speakers, for their remarkable collaborative efforts in ensuring the conference’s success.
