Devex Newswire: Gates CEO urges billionaires to give more, and faster

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman has issued an appeal for wealthy donors to part with some of their massive fortunes.

Also in today’s edition: Kenya-based nonprofit One Acre Fund offers financial protections to African farmers impacted by climate change, and we introduce you to the United Nations official who is helping cities prepare for extreme heat.

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Along with governments, multilateral institutions and companies, the world's wealthiest people should step up their giving to global causes such as improving maternal health and ending extreme poverty, Suzman writes in his latest annual letter.

Billions of dollars that could be helping people are just sitting on the sidelines, he notes, citing data that shows the collective net worth of the world’s 2,640 billionaires is at least $12.2 trillion.

“With $1 billion, philanthropists could fund a set of high-impact, low-cost interventions that would save the lives of two million additional mothers and babies in the next six years,” Suzman says as an example of what could be accomplished with higher donation levels.

The plea comes as the Gates Foundation boosts its own giving. Last week, the foundation announced its biggest annual budget ever. It plans to spend $8.6 billion, a 4% increase from 2023. And its board has pledged to increase the annual payout to $9 billion by 2026.

In the letter, Suzman praised donors around the globe who have been giving sizable donations, most notably Charles “Chuck” Feeney, who died last year. The Irish-American businessman donated to charity nearly all of the $8 billion he made as co-founder of a chain of airport duty-free shops and through tech investments.

And yet, as I write in this piece, Feeney was an anomaly among the world’s ultra rich. As a whole, those who have reached billionaire or millionaire status are richer now than they were at the start of the pandemic in 2020 and are giving meager amounts of their riches to charity.

Read: Gates CEO Mark Suzman urges wealthy to give away more money, faster

Crops and bonds

The One Acre Fund wants to help insure millions of smallholder farmers against crop damage from droughts, floods and other climate disasters. Such a practice could provide a critical safety net given that subsidized agri-insurance is currently only available in four of Africa’s 54 countries.

And many existing insurance policy options are expensive and seen as untrustworthy by farmers.

“People don’t necessarily trust insurance companies and it is very hard to get in touch or sue anyone here if a small farmer is far away in the countryside,” says Johannes Borchert, global head of risk and resilience at One Acre Fund. “Especially for small farmers, where payouts or transaction sizes are low, it’s almost impossible to ‘fight’ an insurer for a payout.”

One Acre Fund hopes to offer better coverage at lower cost with its One Acre Fund Re reinsurance program. The organization aims to provide financial protection for over 1 million smallholder farmers in Africa by 2024 and at least 4 million by 2030, Devex contributor Rebecca Holland writes.

Read: Inside One Acre Fund’s reinsurance fund for African smallholder farmers

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The heat is on

I can only imagine the dinner party conversations when Eleni Myrivili reveals she’s a “heat chief.” But the puzzlement likely turns quickly to some pretty heavy talk once her role is clarified.

Myrivili first rose to international prominence when she was named heat chief of Athens in 2021, the first heat officer in Europe. She led efforts to help the Greek capital deal with a disastrous spate of wildfires and extreme heat waves, and soon inspired other cities worldwide to create similar roles.

As the United Nations’ first global heat officer, Myrivili is a pioneer in helping the world’s cities adapt to extreme heat. She spends her time considering how to keep people safe in a warming world and how cities must prepare for the deadly heat waves expected by 2050. She advocates for them to adopt resilience measures, such as heat-resistant infrastructure, and policies that will protect laborers, the elderly, and other vulnerable groups.

“It’s in cities where heat is killing most people and where we have to really address the problem,” Myrivili tells me.

Few cities have their own heat officers. That needs to change, Myrivili says, but most cities don’t have the budget. Beyond the money needed for cooling centers and planting shade trees, cities fund for the issues caused by excessive heat, like health care for the elderly.

Read: Meet the UN global heat officer helping cities withstand climate change

Background reading: Extreme heat — The climate disaster that needs more attention

Things that make you go hmmmm …

The World Bank disbursed $91.4 billion in the fiscal year that ended in June 2023, a 36.3% increase from the previous year. However, as my colleague Miguel Antonio Tamonan writes, there were significant errors, including inconsistent dollar amounts, in the three biggest contracts — which included a $9 billion road rehabilitation project in Madagascar.

Excluding these, the total major contracts amounted to $14.1 billion, with civil works receiving the most funding. China was the top supplier country, followed by India and Indonesia.

Notably, the World Bank's focus returned to traditional priorities like infrastructure and development projects, shifting from the previous fiscal year's emphasis on pandemic-related responses.

Learn more: The World Bank’s top 10 contractors in 2023 (Pro)

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The missing piece

Global challenges like climate change and food insecurity require a strong global economy, but half the population — women — are underutilized due to inequality, the World Bank’s Anna Bjerde and Indermit Gill write in an opinion piece for Devex.

Discriminatory laws in at least 65 countries limit women's access to lucrative professions, contributing to a pay gap in many places. Investments in legal reforms, campaigns to change social norms, and strong workplace legislation would help empower women and unlock their economic potential, Bjerde and Gill say.  

Closing the gender gap in employment is shown to have the potential to raise long-term GDP per capita by nearly 20% on average across countries, according to the authors.

The World Bank is launching a strategy to accelerate gender equality and develop indicators to track progress. Governments also must enact reforms, enforce laws, and address social norms, the authors say.

Opinion: It’s time to mobilize the economic power of half of humanity

+ Catch up on our coverage of news, opinion, analyses, and career insights on achieving gender equality — goal 5 of the SDGs. 

In other news

Israeli forces shelled a U.N. shelter housing 800 people in Khan Younis, resulting in casualties, according to the head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees in Gaza. [Al Jazeera]

Libya's deadly flash flood in September is requiring $1.8 billion for reconstruction and recovery, according to an international report released on Wednesday. [Reuters]

The U.N.’s refugee agency chief Filippo Grandi expressed concern over the war in Ukraine as the country approaches two years since Russia's full-scale invasion, which has resulted in 3.7 million internally displaced people and 6.3 million refugees. [AP News]

Helen Murphy contributed to this edition of Devex Newswire.

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