As we start the new year with the Devex newsroom kicking back into high gear to bring you the biggest news in globaldev, here’s a recap of the top 10 most-read articles in 2021 by our community. Aside from our ongoing coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic, globaldev professionals across the globe also closely followed the geopolitics of foreign aid to Ethiopia, and our exclusive look into the big problems inside the African Union Commission.
There’s also still time to join in on the fun and test your knowledge of 2021's biggest global development news. Take our latest news quiz, and share it with friends and colleagues on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to see who among you is a true “SDGenius.”
For our Pro subscribers, Vince Chadwick and Shabtai Gold rounded up some of last year’s most eyebrow-raising multilateral development bank investments. In response to your interests, our reporters over the past year focused intently on the current state of global health security and also published “A Globaldev Guide to New Social Media,” where we dove into emerging trends, new platforms, and shared how NGOs and international organizations can evolve their social media work.
Our Pro subscribers also have exclusive access to our top career advice articles of 2021 and top career tips for global development professionals in 2022, curated by Careers Editor Justin Sablich.
Here’s a look at our top-read Devex Pro stories for 2021:
1. Oxfam's reckoning. Oxfam has long been one of the world’s best-known global development organizations, but in 2018, it was hit by a sexual abuse scandal. Since then, the charity has grappled with funding cuts, mass layoffs, and calls to “decolonize” aid — and as it works to introduce reforms that prove it can change, it finds itself at a crossroads. In this story, Andrew Green set out to understand what has happened since the scandal broke, and what it could mean for the global development sector, as many international NGOs quietly reckon with the same questions about their future.
+ Follow our ongoing #AidToo investigation.
2. Top USAID contractors in 2020: Who received COVID-19 funding? As the COVID-19 pandemic created an influx of funding data from donors around the world, our team of analysts quickly kicked into gear, taking on the mammoth task of keeping track of it. Among the numerous articles we published this year on COVID-19 funding, Devex data guru Raquel Alcega's piece on the major award winners among $6.2 billion of USAID contract commitments proved the most popular. In a separate article, we also looked at the top grantees for $21.4 billion that USAID spent through acquisition and assistance mechanisms in 2020.
3. Major philanthropic foundations that aren't the Gates Foundation. In a year when the world’s largest private charitable foundation attracted more interest than ever — and not always for the right reasons — it was worth remembering that there is a world of philanthropic foundations beyond Gates that aren’t always subject to the same level of attention. My colleagues Janadale Leene Coralde and Miguel Antonio Tamonan looked at the next four biggest grant-making foundations, including how much they spend on global development, and what they spend it on.
4. Omaze: Is the fundraising revolution too good to be true? Our Pro Editor Jessica Abrahams spent months working with award-winning journalist Abby Young-Powell on this in-depth story that raised questions about the future of fundraising. Luxury fundraiser Omaze — which currently operates in the United States and United Kingdom, but has plans to expand across Europe — has so far collected more than $150 million for good causes, but critics say its model misleads donors and risks falling foul of regulations. We went in search of answers.
5. Supply chain unit is sign of shifting business model: Chemonics CEO. Our business editor David Ainsworth interviewed Chemonics CEO Jamey Butcher to learn more about his company’s new subsidiary Connexi, which provides supply chain services in the development sector. Connexi is intended to expand services to a wider audience of private health care providers, other donors, and national governments, and Butcher shares how the pandemic and USAID’s move to local implementation could affect his company’s business model.
Check out all of our Devex Pro coverage.
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