The Trump administration announced just yesterday (Feb 24) that it will cut 1,600 United States Agency for International Development (USAID) jobs in the US. This, along with the US’s exit from the Paris Agreement on climate change, has “accelerated a shift” from a “single powerful economic leader” towards a “more multipolar global order”, adds Batra. “Many of us did not think [this] would come so fast.”
Months into US President Donald Trump’s second term in office, the global philanthropy sector is undergoing “a time of great uncertainty”, says Naina Batra, CEO of AVPN, the largest network of social investors in Asia with over 600 diverse members across 33 markets.
“Questions around global leadership [and] around what is happening to address the challenges that we all face as a global population are more pressing today than ever before,” says Batra at the AVPN Southeast Asia Summit 2025 on Feb 25.
