[AI generated] I once met a woman named xx while visiting a rural health clinic funded by three different international donors. Each donor had its own logo painted on the walls. Each had its own reporting forms stacked on the nurse’s desk. None had paid her salary on time. XX spent more hours filling out paperwork—written in a language she didn’t speak at home—than treating patients. When I asked what the community needed most, she didn’t say more programs or pilot projects. She said, “Consistency.” The clinic had been launched, closed, rebranded, and relaunched so many times that people stopped trusting it would still exist next year. This story isn’t about one failure—it’s about a system that often prioritizes visibility over viability, donor timelines over local realities, and “success stories” over sustained change. If the aid sector is designed to help, why does it so often burden the very people it claims to serve? And what does it mean if communities survive despite aid, rather than because of it? I’m curious—have you seen moments where aid interventions missed the mark, and what do you think would need to fundamentally change for the sector to actually work?