Several of the world’s largest donors are part of the Anglosphere. Unsurprisingly, the focus tends to go to the two largest — the United States and the United Kingdom. Over the coming weeks, we’ll be looking at some of the other predominantly English-speaking donors, starting here with Canada.
Also in this week’s edition: Massive cuts at the U.S. State Department, and the lowdown from the Financing for Development conference
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OD eh?
A rise in spending made Canada the sixth-largest bilateral donor in 2023, my colleague Miguel Antonio Tamonan finds. Much of that is due to a rise in in-country refugee costs and a surge in support for Ukraine, Miguel writes — and that year, Ukraine was the biggest beneficiary when it came to single-country programs.
Unfortunately, in 2024, preliminary data indicates the country’s spending dipped for the first time in several years. It spent an estimated $7.3 billion on official development assistance, or ODA — a $640 million cut from 2023.
Read: Canadian aid — a primer (Pro)
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Funding activity
We publish tenders, grants, and other funding announcements on our Funding Platform. Here are some of those viewed the most in the past 10 days.
The World Bank has announced a $75 million loan to increase financing for electric vehicles and micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises in Colombia.
The Inter-American Development Bank has approved a $75 million loan to enhance agricultural competitiveness and development by improving rural roads in Paraguay.
The African Development Bank has supported a $474.6 million loan to enhance energy security, support a just low-carbon transition, and improve transport efficiency in South Africa.
The Jacobs Foundation has announced a $1 million grant to understand how individual, group, and contextual differences affect children’s learning and development worldwide.
The U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office has supported a £320,000 ($437,000) grant to accelerate green finance in energy and forestry, and mobilize funds through carbon markets in Malaysia.
The United Nations has announced a call for proposals for a $136,000 grant to promote gender-responsive economic empowerment and strengthen inclusive social protection in Albania.
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Seville partnership or Sevilla disappointment?
Tens of thousands of delegates, including 50 heads of state, showed up in Sevilla, Spain, last week for the fourth Financing for Development, or FfD4, conference — although notably, pretty much no one from the United States government so much as darkened the door.
That absence meant expectations weren’t high going into the conference, but by and large, negotiators seem to have decided to just plow ahead and ignore the absence of the world’s largest economy. And delegates appear to have emerged pleasantly surprised by how much progress was made.
Debt was the number one topic on the agenda, and the conference saw the announcement of a new borrower’s club to help countries build expertise and share information.
There was also progress on fair taxation, and discussion about a private sector-led, post-ODA world.
For a roundup of the whole sprawling affair, you can take a look at our bumper newsletter, or check out our focus page.
Read: The key takeaways from four days in Sevilla
Explore: All the news and events from FfD4
+ If you’re anything like us, you’re probably still processing all the insights (and maybe a few tapas) from FfD4. While the discussions were certainly crucial, the Devex train keeps rolling with a fantastic lineup of exclusive events designed to keep you at the forefront of global development.
On Wednesday, we’re tackling a hot topic: Outcomes-based finance. What happens to this growing market in the wake of all the discussions and debates that unfolded in Sevilla? Join us as we put this question to leading experts in the field.
Thursday brings a fascinating deep dive with the GSR Foundation, an up-and-coming funder making waves at the intersection of crypto, emerging tech, and global development. Register for it here.
And Friday, we’ll be chatting with Fabio Segura, co-CEO of the Jacobs Foundation, as part of our Pro Funding series spotlighting funders who are rethinking traditional models. Register now.
Not in a good State?
Last week, USAID was officially merged into the Department of State, and it’s fair to say that the development community is less than wholly confident about what happens next.
Experts queued up to say that the State Department doesn’t have the knowledge and experience to handle the caseload it’s being given.
In particular, the biggest issue is that it simply doesn’t have enough staff, and that problem is only going to get worse as major reductions in force take place.
Watch: State Dept takeover of USAID is an 'impending train wreck,' experts say (Pro)
Read: State Department employees in anxious limbo over massive staff cuts
Hyper-proritized
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs is struggling. For the last decade or so, almost half its annual budget has come from the United States, which has pretty much shut up shop for the first half of this year.
There seem to be some indications that in the long run, the U.S. will prioritize humanitarian spending over other things, UNOCHA has said its $44 billion requirements are only around 13% funded, with half the year gone.
UNOCHA never receives all the funding it asks for, and it has been struggling in the last few years with a sharp rise in need compared to historical numbers. But whichever way you look at it, the situation’s bad,
UNOCHA has responded with a new $29 billion appeal, which it describes as “hyper-prioritized.” Officially, it does not replace the original goals, although it appears to be a tacit admission that those goals will be extremely hard to hit.
Read: Why has UNOCHA set a lower target for humanitarian spending?
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About the author
David Ainsworth@daveainsworth4
David Ainsworth is business editor at Devex, where he writes about finance and funding issues for development institutions. He was previously a senior writer and editor for magazines specializing in nonprofits in the U.K. and worked as a policy and communications specialist in the nonprofit sector for a number of years. His team specializes in understanding reports and data and what it teaches us about how development functions.
