Open Society Foundations, the multibillion-dollar foundation of the Soros family, has given away billions over the past five years. But how much went to the global south — and who got it?
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Open coffers
Open Society Foundations is one of the biggest funders in the world of development. It’s also recently gone through a radical makeover, with a new chair, president, and strategy — all of which have been accompanied by deep staff cuts.
With that in mind, there has been scrutiny over who in the global south receives OSF funding.
In order to find out, my colleague Alecsondra Kieren Si looked at five years of data, converted to 2023 prices. She found that around half of all funding is listed as global — which may be going largely to the global south, but there’s no way to know — while over $2 billion went to the United States and Europe and Central Asia.
This left just over $900 million earmarked entirely for regions in the global south. Alecsondra combed through that list and found the grantees who had received the most cash.
While Latin America and the Caribbean was the most funded region, the biggest single recipient was the Institute for Security Studies, a South Africa-based organization focused on human security.
While Latin America and the Caribbean was the most funded region, the biggest single recipient was the Indonesia-based Kurawal Foundation, which aims to promote democracy in the country and Southeast Asia.
Mind you, it’s not just OSF Devex has been watching recently. We’ve produced fresh analyses of the Gates Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Ford Foundation. We’ve also recently spoken with grantmaker Co-Impact about their funding strategy.
Read: Which global south organizations got Open Society Foundations funding? (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 Inter-American Development Bank has approved a $350 million policy-based loan to strengthen the social safety net and empower vulnerable groups in Guyana.
The World Bank has launched a $42 million project to enhance access to electricity in Micronesia.
The European Investment Bank has provided a €60 million loan to support housing initiatives in the Czech Republic.
German funder Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau is contracting consulting services to improve the water supply and sewage systems in Brazil.
The United Nations is calling for expressions of interest for the implementation of a project aimed at digitizing policies and tools to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the transport sector in Argentina and Ecuador.
The Asian Development Bank is seeking consulting services to develop a feasibility study for the modernization of district heating systems in Uzbekistan.
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Rescission decisions
It’s been another busy week in the world of U.S. President Donald Trump. The full White House budget request appeared this week, and it comes with the expected steep cuts to U.S. aid.
At the same time, the Trump administration has approached the U.S. Congress to ask for a rescissions package formalizing cuts that have, in effect, already been decided.
It’s not at all clear at this stage how the White House plans to deliver the amount of aid that remains in the budget. But some planning does seem to be getting underway, as part of a wider reorganization of the State Department, which, going forward, is likely to be the main agency delivering that aid.
My colleagues Elissa Miolene and Michael Igoe have broken down some of what we might expect to see.
Exclusive: Congress kick-starts State Department reorganization planning
Reduced remit
Another Trumpworld proposal that’s likely to have an effect in the global south, if not necessarily directly on aid: A 3.5% tax on remittances sent home by those who aren’t U.S. citizens.
Remittances are big money. They amount to more than $800 billion — almost four times as much as official development assistance — and that multiple is only going to get bigger as the years roll by.
The United States is responsible for a large share of that — around $85.8 billion in 2023 — and a significant amount of that would be affected by the new tax.
So what’s going to happen? Obviously, those working in the U.S. will try to find ways around it — asking friends to send the money home, or carrying cash across borders. Experts think that driving the process underground is not the world’s greatest idea, to put it mildly.
It’s also going to be a real pain in the behind for wire services, which are going to have to verify the identity of all their customers. These services probably won’t be thrilled to be turned into tax collection agents for the U.S. government.
Read: What a 3.5% tax on remittances could do to the developing world
Significantly different
The U.K. government has changed its spending plans for the fiscal year to March 31, 2026, according to comments at a parliamentary committee hearing last week.
The United Kingdom has already announced plans for a £500 million cut to this year’s aid budget.
But speaking at the International Development Committee hearing last Tuesday, member of Parliament Sarah Champion, who chairs the committee, said that when the committee saw the latest estimates of government aid spending, they differed significantly from expectations.
Jenny Chapman, the U.K. development minister, said this was done to create fiscal breathing room, given the reductions planned in the coming years.
Read: UK changes this year’s aid spend again with new estimates
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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.
