The financial year of the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office concluded at the end of March, and Devex has delved into the list of contracts to find out how much was spent on development, and who won business.
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Who got the dough at FCDO?
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FCDO spent £3.4 billion via contracts in the financial year that ended on March 31, 2024, including more than £550 million on development-related contracts. That’s a big boost on the previous year. But what sectors did it spend the most money on? Where were the projects delivered? And which contractor won the most business? My colleague Alecsondra Kieren Si has the answers.
Read: FCDO's top development contractors of 2023/24 (Pro)
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Funding activity
We publish tenders, grants, and other funding announcements on our Funding Platform. Here are some of the ones that have been viewed the most in the past 10 days.
The Asian Development Bank has approved $24.9 million of funding to help improve access to quality health services in Laos.
The Inter-American Development Bank has released $60 million to foster sustainable development in the Bahamas.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is seeking a consultant to support program management at a partner institution of the African Capacity Building Foundation in Kenya.
USAID intends to award $322 million of funding to support social and behavior change in global health worldwide.
The United Nations is looking for a specialized research agency to conduct an assessment of advocacy efforts on gender equality and women’s empowerment in Jordan.
The World Bank has approved a $16 million grant to support micro and small enterprises and women’s economic inclusion in Afghanistan.
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Make USAID great again?
The battle for the next U.S. presidency is already hotting up, and it looks to be a rerun between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. But what would Trump do in the world of aid if he got a second term?
The Heritage Foundation, an influential think tank with deep-pocketed backers, has penned a nearly 1,000-page document looking at what might happen in every agency. My colleague Elissa Miolene spoke to experts about the key proposals.
Read: What MAGA has planned for USAID — and the world (Pro)
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A blank slate
In recent months, many European countries with right-wing governments have seen cuts to their aid budgets. It’s even affected Sweden, the second-most generous donor in the Development Assistance Committee — at least in terms of aid as a proportion of gross national income.
But what’s really angered the local development community is a decision to scrap partnership agreements with 17 NGOs that were previously responsible for distributing aid cash to almost 2,000 local partners. The move is pitched as a chance for non-Swedish NGOs to bid directly for funding, but the sector says it’s rushed, shortsighted, and wasteful.
Read: Why Sweden tore up its funding agreements with its NGO partners (Pro)
Related reading: Sweden cutting peace-building budget by 40%
New direction
The Inter-American Development Bank is radically shaking up its funding strategy, and how it measures success. In particular, IDB is trying to focus all its effort on the development impact it has, rather than the cash it gets out of the door.
“We are going to make the institution care deeply about what is the ultimate result of our work and less about how much we lend, what is the envelope,” the bank’s president, Ilan Goldfajn, tells Devex.
But he acknowledged how difficult this will prove to be. Culture change in other big development institutions has been hard and slow, and Goldfajn expects nothing less in his own institution.
“It’s very difficult because it means that we have to change the culture, that we have to change incentives,” he says.
Read: IDB reforms, new funds have been approved. What's next? (Pro)
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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.
