Money Matters: Where the UN spent $29.6B last year

The United Nations saw a huge rise in spending in 2021, largely due to increased spending on tackling COVID-19. We look at where the money went.

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UN-checked spending

Earlier this month, the United Nations released its annual procurement report, showing a massive rise in spending. 

Most of the increase was due to COVID-19, but there was also a $2.2 billion increase in spending from the underfire United Nations Office for Project Services, related to a contract to provide health care procurement in Mexico.

Overall, five organizations accounted for 70.4% of U.N.’s total procurement volume in 2021: UNICEF, the World Food Programme, UNOPS, the U.N. Development Programme, and the U.N. Procurement Division.  

Read: How the UN spent $29.6B in 2021 (Pro)

Also: Catch up on our coverage of the UNOPS scandal.

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Grain of hope

This week saw a series of steps to address rising food prices, largely caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

While Ukraine and Russia sealed a deal to ease the flow of grain — which was almost immediately put under threat by Russian missile strikes — funders are stepping up to deliver more food aid. This week, Samantha Power, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, unveiled nearly $1.2 billion in funding for the global food crisis.

In the coming weeks, we’ll be looking in depth at the food crisis, the war in Ukraine, and the pandemic, and how they’ve impacted other issues such as debt around the world and the neglect of other conflict zones. Look out for a series of long-form analyses starting on Aug. 8.

Food funding: USAID's Power unveils over $1B for global food crisis, calls on others

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Funding activity

AfDB. $134M loan to boost local food production in Nigeria.
EU. $13.1B (€12.8B) to promote economic, social, and territorial cohesion in Slovakia.
IMF. $1.04B to accelerate the economic recovery in Tanzania.
USAID. $169M to fund humanitarian aid for victims of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

See more funding opportunities.

A better job

We know that secrecy around salary tends to create inequities within organizations, and generally disadvantage women and minority groups. But equal pay isn’t always an area where the development sector can ask others to do better, because its own record is poor. That’s borne out of data from our own job board, which shows that just 1 in 5 job ads come with a salary specified — better than previous years, but still lower than the 22% average across 15 industries identified in a 2022 Payscale report.

Rebecca Root, writing for Devex, finds that campaigners within nonprofits are uniting around the #ShowtheSalary slogan as a rallying call for our sector to do better.

Pay problems: Development organizations face calls for more salary transparency (Career) 

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Spend at Save

Save the Children International is one of the world’s largest NGOs, and it’s growing larger.

Accounts filed this month with Companies House, the United Kingdom registrar, show that spending rose 15% to more than $1.3 billion. But despite being a U.K. organization, funding from its home country fell significantly.

The story is noteworthy for another reason. It’s the first piece of journalism for Devex from our newest reporter, Omar Mohammed, who’ll be working closely with me to cover the business and funding of international development, particularly what’s going on at USAID.

If you’re interested in catching up with Omar, or you’ve got a funding story tip, you can reach him at omar.mohammed@devex.com, or follow him on Twitter at @shurufu.

Read: Save the Children International sees 15% spike in income in 2021 (Pro)

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Watch words

At Devex World, my colleagues and I had the chance to catch up with leaders from all around the development world. We recorded short interviews on topics including the role of NGOs, how we train the next generation of aid workers, and how we need racial equity within U.S. development organizations. Pro members can access all the videos here.

Mo’ money, no problems

Last year, the G-20 commissioned a report looking at how multilateral development banks can lend more money. But the report itself did not make its expected appearance at the recent G-20 summit in Indonesia — and in fact the full document was not published until my colleague Shabtai Gold obtained a leaked copy.

So what does the report recommend? Essentially, it says MDBs have been too conservative in their approach to risk because they are worried about holding onto a top level credit rating. It suggests they need to hold less cash on their balance sheet relative to the amount they lend out.

The report identifies risks to the approach, and says many different parties need to work together to overcome those. But the upside is massive: hundreds of billions of dollars of extra loans to low- and middle-income countries.

Exclusive: G-20 report says MDBs are holding back hundreds of billions

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