The United Nations Foundation has been at the forefront of reducing child mortality, empowering women and using science and technology to improve the lives of impoverished people since 1998, when media mogul Ted Turner pledged $1 billion to set up the organization.
Devex sat down with the foundation’s CEO Kathy Calvin on the sidelines of the Society for International Development World Congress in Washington July 29-31 to talk about how the development world is changing.
How has development aid been changed by the Arab Spring?
There’s a lot happening around the world now. We’re seeing a revolution in so many sectors. There are revolutions in technology, in finance, but most of all we’re seeing a revolution in people wanting to take control of their own lives. I think that’s the biggest change we’re going to see in development. It’s not a matter of receiving aid but of getting assistance to make a change in your own life.
That’s going to be the dynamic that we’re going to have to think about every day as we work on defining what aid needs to be, defining who’s delivering it, defining who the partners are and making sure that it’s not given but that it’s actually codesigned and cocreated.
What role will the U.N. Foundation and other non-governmental organizations play in development as major economies increasingly struggle with debt?
I think the magic of the next few years is going to be that the players are really expanding. Especially, you see the private sector stepping up. So, it’s kind of a myth to focus just on [official development aid] because that’s going to be the shrinking dollar. The increasing dollar is going to be private investment. It’s going to be philanthropic aid, but it’s also going to be areas where we’re creating new markets that are genuine markets for the bottom of the pyramid, markets for development.
What’s the significance of China’s increasing investment in African development? What are its goals?
We know what the goals of aid donors have always been. There’s always a philanthropic goal but there’s also a market goal and a goal to make a change in a part of the world that has resources and people who will be markets in the future. That’s not a bad motive. It’s just a motive we have to understand. I think China’s kind of challenged us to think about their approach, which is very much about building new economies.
How will advances in science and technology affect the way aid is done and what aid is capable of doing in the future?
I think it’s going to change completely because it’s going to move us away from large-scale aid to microaid. Just like microfinance and microcredit, microaid is also going to happen. That means aid won’t be a large-scale gift but a series of small changes that make it possible for poor people to change their own lives.
Read last week’s 4 Questions for Egyptian blogger and activist Dalia Ziada.
About the author
Joseph Marks
Joseph Marks is a Devex correspondent based in Washington, D.C., where he covers stories related to international development, economics, diplomacy and foreign policy. He has written about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, homeland security, technology, global Internet freedom, trade and U.S. law.
