It was a day of comings and goings. We start with Melinda French Gates’ big split from the foundation that bears her name.
Also in today’s edition: The Center for Global Development welcomes a new president, the head of Pathfinder is out, and we break down MacKenzie Scott’s billions.
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Melinda moves on
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will now simply be known as the Gates Foundation, as Melinda French Gates departs the organization she co-founded in 2000 and charts a new path for her philanthropic endeavors.
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As part of the separation agreement with her former husband Bill Gates, she will receive an additional $12.5 billion for her work on behalf of women and families, Devex Senior Editor Tania Karas writes.
“This is not a decision I came to lightly,” French Gates said yesterday on the social media platform X in announcing her resignation. “I am immensely proud of the foundation that Bill and I built together and of the extraordinary work it is doing to address inequities around the world,” she added, noting that she will share more about her coming charitable plans “in the near future.”
Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman said French Gates “made this decision, after considerable reflection, based on how she wants to spend the next chapter of her philanthropy.”
“Melinda has new ideas about the role she wants to play in improving the lives of women and families in the U.S. and around the world,” Suzman said. “And, after a difficult few years watching women’s rights rolled back in the U.S. and around the world, she wants to use this next chapter to focus specifically on altering that trajectory.”
The issue of reproductive rights came up at the recent Global Inclusive Growth Summit, where French Gates said: “We know that there is literally no country in the world that has not gone from low- to middle-income or middle- to high-income without making sure first women have access to birth control. And if you roll back that benefit, women can't get an education, they can't finish their degree, they can't start a business.”
Headquartered in Seattle, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is one of the world’s largest charitable foundations. It has an endowment of $75.2 billion and has given away some $78 billion worth of grants since its founding.
Read: Melinda French Gates resigns from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
ICYMI: How can we close the $160 trillion women’s wealth gap?
Deus ex-wife machina
We have information on another indomitable force in philanthropy: MacKenzie Scott.
The former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has become a household name in her own right for giving away her vast fortune — with tremendous speed and without any strings.
In fact, while it’s only been five years since Scott signed the Giving Pledge, she has already disbursed almost half of her roughly $35 billion net worth to over 2,300 organizations.
The bulk of that has gone to U.S. organizations, although grantees that either work primarily in low- and middle-income countries or have regional or global presence have also been the recipients of substantial sums.
But as we pointed out in a previous analysis, it’s tricky to map out exactly where Scott’s money is going. Because the grants are unrestricted, grantees can report multiple regions and countries as their beneficiaries. This is also the case for the sectoral priorities, although health, education, the environment, and women’s empowerment all feature prominently on the list.
CAMFED, an organization focusing on the education of girls and young women in Africa, was the top grantee outside the U.S., with $20 million. Devex Pro members can read the whole analysis to find out who else is benefiting from Scott’s largesse.
Read: MacKenzie Scott gave away over $2B last year. Where did it go? (Pro)
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Maternal instincts
Both French Gates and Scott have devoted significant resources to women’s health, but on the whole, maternal and child health remains woefully underfunded. According to Donor Tracker, total official development assistance to maternal, newborn, and child health stagnated between 2017 and 2021 at around $10 billion annually.
Gender health advocates are hoping more philanthropists can step up to the plate, writes David Njagi for Devex.
“Philanthropy can help create conditions that enable people and communities to thrive by speeding innovations and filling gaps that governments and businesses can’t or won’t address,” says Katelen Kellogg of the Gates Foundation. She noted that addressing the women’s health funding gap would boost the global economy by $1 trillion.
One major obstacle, though, is competition for resources.
Ellen Mkondya-Senkoro of the Benjamin W. Mkapa Foundation says there is a general feeling in the health space that philanthropists have paid more attention to other critical areas such as HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria.
“Globally this has been a challenge in terms of realizing progress on maternal health,” she says, pointing out there is no special global fund for maternal health.
Read: Gender activists want more philanthropic funding for maternal health
A new president
Turning from philanthropy to nonprofits: Rachel Glennerster will become the new president of the Center for Global Development, effective Sept. 3. She succeeds Masood Ahmed, who has been at the helm of the think tank — based in Washington, D.C., and London — for the last seven years.
“Rachel has a mix of skills which place her in a unique position to lead CGD: a combination of academic rigor and credibility, the policy experience to ensure CGD’s work is impactful, and the leadership and fundraising experience to advance the organization’s mission,” Lawrence Summers, chair of the CGD board and former U.S. treasury secretary, said in a press release.
Glennerster previously served as chief economist at the U.K.’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. She’s currently an associate professor of economics at the University of Chicago and chairs Teaching at the Right Level Africa, an initiative dedicated to advancing evidence-backed educational strategies in Africa.
Glennerster is an influential figure in the application of randomized trials to development policy and her work has contributed to areas including health, education, and women's empowerment in regions such as West Africa and South Asia.
“Good evidence on how best to address global challenges is needed more than ever and CGD has a unique role to play in both conducting high quality research and helping make sure that evidence gets incorporated into policy,” Glennerster said in the release.
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A new path
Lois Quam will step down as CEO of Pathfinder International, the organization's board of directors announced Monday. Quam, who has led Pathfinder since 2017, has accepted a new job in the U.S. health care industry, the organization announced in a press release.
Her tenure has been marked by a tumultuous reform effort aimed at shifting power from Pathfinder's headquarters to its country offices. Quam said the goal was to build an international NGO ready for a future of localization, but critics accused her of seizing power and creating a toxic work environment. The acrimony came to a head in 2022 in a public split with members of Pathfinder's founding family.
Pathfinder implements more than $100 million per year in reproductive health and family planning programs, most of which are supported by USAID. Tabinda Sarosh, Pathfinder's president for South Asia, Middle East, and North Africa, will assume the CEO role on an interim basis starting May 20.
Background reading: The localization wars
In other news
U.N. relief chief Martin Griffiths stressed the urgent need for sustained peace efforts in Yemen, where civilians suffer from nearly a decade of conflict worsened by a growing cholera outbreak. [UN News]
The IMF approved the eighth review of Argentina’s $44 billion program, endorsing President Javier Milei’s economic reforms six months into his term and potentially granting access to nearly $800 million. [Bloomberg]
As the U.N.’s World Intellectual Property Organization nears finalizing a “biopiracy” treaty to protect genetic resources from exploitation, African nations have called for sanctions to be applied to violating companies or countries. [Al Jazeera]
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About the author
Anna Gawel
Anna Gawel is the Managing Editor of Devex. She previously worked as the managing editor of The Washington Diplomat, the flagship publication of D.C.’s diplomatic community. She’s had hundreds of articles published on world affairs, U.S. foreign policy, politics, security, trade, travel and the arts on topics ranging from the impact of State Department budget cuts to Caribbean efforts to fight climate change. She was also a broadcast producer and digital editor at WTOP News and host of the Global 360 podcast. She holds a journalism degree from the University of Maryland in College Park.
