“The Perversion of Aid”: How the EU’s NGO Funding Model Fuels Political Activism
24th February 2026
“What we are looking at today is the perversion of aid: the use of aid money to attain political objectives which cannot be obtained openly by other means,” declared John O’Sullivan, president of the Danube Institute that hosted the conference “The Politicization of Aid,” held in Budapest on Tuesday, February 24th.
The speakers of the event elaborated on the central topic of the conference: how foreign aid has shifted from traditional humanitarian relief to supporting activist networks and the promotion of progressive causes. According to many of the speakers, aid has long been shaped by political and ideological interests, but in recent decades it has taken on a more explicitly political character.
Although this “perversion” has been apparent for quite a while, with the closing down of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the new U.S. president Donald Trump in 2025, public awareness of this transformation has accelerated.