Devex Newswire: What will Soros' transformation of OSF bring in 2024?

In our final Newswire before the new year, we look at the changes on the horizon for the Open Society Foundations and what its restructuring means for hundreds of workers — and for global development writ large. Happy New Year! We’ll be back in your inbox on Jan. 2. Also in today’s edition: The United Kingdom opens a new post for the Palestinian territories, and the United Nations takes a concrete step on WASH. + Drumroll please! The lucky winner of a yearlong Devex Pro membership, with a perfect score in the Newswire year-end quiz, is Dr. Saisuparna Vasudev. Congratulations! The trouble with billionaires The word “restructuring” means widely different things to widely different stakeholders. For decision-makers, it usually means a massive overhaul to streamline operations and build new revenue streams. For the rank and file, it generally means budget squeezes — and job cuts. And so it was for the Open Society Foundations this year. The 30-odd-year-old foundation, created by billionaire hedge fund manager George Soros to create and bolster democratic, open societies worldwide, is undergoing a major reorganization that has led to massive staff layoffs and office closures. George’s son Alexander, who took over as board chair of the $25 billion, New York-based foundation in December 2022, has been the instigator of change. And his vision for the organization includes cutting at least 40% of the roughly 800 employees globally. The narrative is that it will make the grantmaker nimbler so it can respond more quickly to global crises. But the transformation of this philanthropy giant will be consequential for the global development sector, writes Senior Reporter Stephanie Beasley, who lays out the good, bad, and ugly of the rejigger. The Soros family obviously wields some pretty hefty clout in the development world — and the world in general. “They have so much money that they can give away, that they can drive change in government as well as nonprofits areas,” says Darrell West, who examined George Soros’ political and philanthropic work in his book “Billionaires: Reflections on the Upper Crust.” “The downside is that a lot of wealthy individuals focus not just on problems but they often have a favored solution,” West tells Stephanie. Sometimes those solutions don’t work and can generate backlash, such as when the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation advocated for the adoption of Common Core, an overhaul of the U.S. education system that some criticized as being too focused on performance metrics, he notes. OSF’s reorganization might end up being another example of a funder going big and failing to get the intended results, says West. Read: OSF expected to reveal its new structure in 2024. How will it work? (Pro) ICYMI: Morale has hit rock bottom at OSF amid reorganization, staff say (Pro) + Looking for additional exclusive insights into what to watch for across the development sector in 2024? Join Devex President Raj Kumar for our next Devex Pro event, an “ask me anything” session on Jan. 10. Save your spot now. Less money, more problems It’s pretty clear that development funding cannot keep up with the myriad crises facing the world at the moment, and that’s doubly true when we look at health needs. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria missed its $18 billion replenishment goal — the “minimum required” to get the world back on track to end HIV, malaria, and TB — by $2.3 billion. The Global Financing Facility and the World Health Organization have both been having funding struggles as well, writes Andrew Green for Devex. So what’s next? As we head into 2024 and beyond, experts are grappling with the crush of current global health priorities, as well as demands to prepare for coming crises such as climate change and new pandemics. “In the short term there is a worry, and it may be a little bit nasty for the next couple of years,” Peter Baker, a global health expert at the Center for Global Development, tells Andrew. “Most of us assume we’re not going to be able to achieve anywhere near what we thought we were going to.” But it could also mean that 2024 marks the beginning of a recalibration in global health aid. Read: Will shrinking aid force changes to the global health landscape? (Pro) + A Devex Pro membership gives you access to all our expert analysis, insider insights, and exclusive events. Get these perks and more by starting a 15-day free trial today. Two if by sea Former U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, now the nation’s foreign secretary, announced a new post — representative for humanitarian affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories — in an attempted message to Israel that more aid must be allowed into Gaza. On a visit to Egypt this week, Cameron said “everything” must be considered to help people in a “desperate situation” — including using British ships to deliver aid by sea from Cyprus, an idea London initially expressed skepticism about. Cameron named Mark Bryson-Richardson, a former Middle East director for the axed U.K. Department for International Development, as his representative with “a particular focus” on easing Gaza’s plight, Devex U.K. Correspondent Rob Merrick reports. Israel’s foreign minister was in Cyprus this week, where he agreed to pursue ways to set up a maritime aid corridor. Britain is reported to have offered amphibious vessels able to land on Gaza’s coastline to carry out the task. "Are there opportunities for aid to come from Cyprus in British ships to be delivered to Gaza? We're working on that,” Cameron said. “Everything that can be done, must be done.” The United Kingdom has announced nearly £60 million ($76 million) of emergency humanitarian aid for Gaza, although this only takes spending back roughly to where it was before its massive aid cuts began in 2021. Meanwhile, the delay to a fresh United Nations vote aimed at getting more aid trucks in has been caused partly by the current draft calling for the U.N. to take over responsibility for inspections from Israel — something the United States argues is “unworkable” and could actually slow down deliveries. Back to a 2024 future “The past has caught up with us. So-called future threats are already here — and the next is just one virus mutation, algorithm, or conflict away. We must get back to the future in 2024.” --— Natalie Samarasinghe, global director of advocacy, Open Society Foundations In Devex Global Voices 2023, we have gathered predictions for the year ahead in the fields of AI, localization, climate and more. Samarasinghe looks ahead to next September’s U.N. Summit of the Future — and notes that more and more, humanity seems mired in age-old problems of the past. Opinion: 2024 must be the year we go back to the future + Read the full list of predictions for 2024. Girl, WASH your face Back in the mid-19th century there was a radical light-bulb moment when the link between dirty hands and infections was made. We take for granted now that hand-washing in a hospital environment is paramount to prevent bacteria spreading between patients. But even so, half the world’s health care facilities still operate without water, soap, or alcohol-based hand gel. That means doctors are unable to wash equipment or their hands, creating a prime environment for infection and antimicrobial resistance, writes Rebecca Root for Devex. One in four facilities cannot segregate health care waste and nearly 1 billion people use health care facilities that don’t have reliable electricity, rendering lifesaving technology useless. So the U.N General Assembly has adopted a new resolution — the first of its kind — to address the critical role of water, sanitation, and hygiene in health care. It prods governments to create national road maps that ensure delivery of these services into programming, financing, monitoring, and evaluation. Having plans that put a solid price on installing these services will be “a very powerful motivator,” says Anthony Rock, a senior adviser to WHO, in requesting financial support from the likes of the World Bank and other development assistance agencies. Read: New UN resolution aims to fix health facilities worldwide + For more content like this, sign up to Devex CheckUp, our free, weekly global health newsletter. In other news A U.N.-backed report revealed that 1 in 4 Gazans are starving, blaming the hunger on insufficient aid entering the area. [TIME] The World Bank granted Tanzania about $1.14 billion in loans to boost its private sector, develop its commercial capital, and combat the effects of climate change. [Reuters] Angola will exit the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries due to a disagreement on production cuts, reducing the group to 12 members. [Al Jazeera] Sign up to Newswire for an inside look at the biggest stories in global development.