A USAID contractor and its nonprofit affiliate are facing allegations that they improperly utilized the nonprofit’s resources on behalf of the contractor’s for-profit business.
Today we’re also following the buzz from the World Bank Spring Meetings, and speaking to the chair of the OECD's DAC committee.
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DT Global and DT Institute are part of the “DT Global family” of organizations. The former is a for-profit contractor that implements projects for the U.S. Agency for International Development. The latter is its nonprofit affiliate.
But according to the Washington D.C. attorney general and a former member of the nonprofit’s board, the organizations’ leaders have blurred the lines between those two missions — possibly in violation of laws governing nonprofit organizations, according to the allegations.
DT Institute “has allowed itself to be run in a manner that suits DT Global’s for-profit and financial interests rather than DTI’s nonprofit purposes,” the office of the attorney general alleges.
DT Global maintains that it has followed the letter of the law. DTI’s representatives declined to comment.
My colleague David Ainsworth previously reported that DT Global recently announced its acquisition of IMC Worldwide and plans to acquire Cardno International Development. The two acquisitions would roughly triple DT Global’s number of employees to well over 2,000.
Read: USAID contractor accused of misusing its nonprofit affiliate
Recap: DT Global to triple in size after two acquisitions (Pro)
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Spring backward
While the World Bank still isn’t letting him in the building, my colleague Shabtai Gold has these notes from this year’s Spring Meetings, which he tells me are proving “grimly predictable.”
The International Monetary Fund downgraded growth projections across most of the world. Rising food prices could spark unrest in low-income countries, and the fund is recommending that governments find ways to offer social support while acknowledging they may be lacking the fiscal firepower after two years of COVID-19 exhaustion. For lower-income countries, IMF is talking about “permanent scarring.”
IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva says, “growth is down and inflation is up.” Or in other words, “income is down and hardship is up.” Will it be a repeat of the 1970s, 2008, or the Arab Spring? No one wants to go quite that far, but these are the benchmark examples, Shabtai tells me.
Russia is being named and blamed for making food and energy prices soar ever higher by invading Ukraine. But so far there seems to be a lot of listing problems and writing blog posts, with no real sense of large-scale comprehensive solutions, Shabtai says.
The recurring phrase: It’s one crisis on top of another.
World Bank President David Malpass wants advanced economies to announce plans to open their markets, particularly on the agricultural front. The World Bank chief seems especially alarmed by the dual shock of inflation and unsustainable debt burdens, and he reiterated his calls to the G-20 to engage in serious talks on relief.
The World Bank estimates that food prices have soared about 37% year-on-year, as it warns that millions of people are being pushed into poverty.
World Bank: Food prices up 37%, middle-income nations in crosshairs
Meanwhile, my colleague Vince Chadwick hears from the EU Commission that the U.N. will present a revised appeal for Ukraine tomorrow, asking for $2.24 billion for the summer months.
+ The latest edition of Devex Dish, our Wednesday newsletter on the global food system, covers Spring Meetings discussions on the food crisis. Sign up and receive it today.
Rules and regulations
What do you really know about the organization that sets the rules for official development assistance? Vince has this fascinating interview with the chair of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee at a time when the definition of what counts as development aid is under intense scrutiny and negotiation.
“The DAC doesn't sit still. I think people love to parody it and see it as these old men sitting in Paris, but trust me, it's not,” says Susanna Moorehead.
Among other things, Moorehead discusses the increased challenge of defining development assistance in the post-Millennium Development Goals era.
“As soon as you shifted to the Sustainable Development Goals, there were going to inevitably be many, many more things that donors could argue should be ODA eligible,” she says.
Q&A: What if all DAC meetings were public? (Pro)
ICYMI: Pro subscribers can read which countries spent the most on aid in 2021 — our analysis of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's preliminary data on 2021 official development assistance.
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Stuck in the middle
“It’s right people are looking to ensure that their funding goes to the greatest need. The danger is if you use overly simplistic filters to do that you’ll filter out a lot of communities who genuinely need that help.”
— Matt Jenkins, interim director, Karen Hilltribes TrustWhen aid donors focus on lower-income countries and humanitarian assistance, who falls through the cracks?
Rebecca Root reports for Devex on Thailand’s Indigenous hill tribes who have been largely left behind by a development narrative that casts Thailand as an upper-middle-income country.
Read: While aid focuses on refugees, Thailand's hill tribes are forgotten
In other news
The U.N. General Assembly convened Tuesday to debate the Liechtenstein resolution, which will require permanent members of the Security Council to justify use of their veto power. [France 24]
Countries in the Horn of Africa teeter on the brink of famine as extreme drought puts up to 20 million people in the region at risk, WFP warned Tuesday. [UN News]
Only “up to £60m” of the £220 million ($286.3 million) in emergency U.K. aid pledged for Ukraine has been delivered, according to government officials. [The Independent]
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About the author
Michael Igoe@AlterIgoe
Michael Igoe is a Senior Reporter with Devex, based in Washington, D.C. He covers U.S. foreign aid, global health, climate change, and development finance. Prior to joining Devex, Michael researched water management and climate change adaptation in post-Soviet Central Asia, where he also wrote for EurasiaNet. Michael earned his bachelor's degree from Bowdoin College, where he majored in Russian, and his master’s degree from the University of Montana, where he studied international conservation and development.
