Opinion: The international development system we knew is gone, and there is no going back. What comes next depends on how we choose to respond.

In European capitals of multilateralism — Geneva, Brussels, Vienna — a new season is dawning. The illusion that we could just “hang on for another four years,” after which everything would return to normal, has faded. In its place, a new realisation is slowly taking shape: the values, beliefs, norms, funding flows and rules that form the international development system are tipping in real time.

The late Nobel Prize-winning chemist Ilya Prigogine had a name for these moments: bifurcation points. His experiments with complex systems demonstrated that once a system reaches a bifurcation point — the critical tipping point when transformation happens — it becomes too unstable and cannot maintain its previous structure.

If that sounds too abstract, here’s a simpler way to put it: we are standing at a fork in the road. Starkly different futures lie ahead for the international development system — some more probable than others.
Moments of divergence on this scale are rare. Today, the most probable path forward is one marked by aggression, polarisation and feedback loops of insecurity and fear — the same toxic patterns spreading through our global geopolitics. Left unchecked, this path leads to tragedy. Here in the heart of Europe, we seem to have forgotten the timeless wisdom imparted by the great Greek tragedies: it is not external threats but our own fear that seals our fate.

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Article originally published on Devex.com.