Money Matters: Who are the best — and worst — primes to partner with?

Territorial, unethical, and predatory.

Those were just a few of the words subawardees used to describe the prime organizations they had partnered with, according to a new analysis from Unlock Aid, an advocacy group focused on foreign assistance reform.

The analysis only received 80 responses, so each organization’s score was likely impacted by those who chose to take part. But as Walter Kerr, the co-founder of Unlock Aid, tells us, the report aims to “put data behind some of the challenges that are commonly expressed.”

Also in this edition: A look at how southern Europe spends its ODA, a dismal foreign aid announcement from the United Kingdom, and UNFPA’s potential $160 million cuts

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And the winners are …

Of the 26 organizations ranked in Unlock Aid’s analysis, Catholic Relief Services, Mercy Corps, and Save the Children scored highest when it came to subawardees’ likelihood of recommending those organizations to others.

Catholic Relief Services, an international aid agency based in the United States, ranked first or second in every other category surveyed.

Still, even those scores weren’t perfect. CRS, which received the highest “likely to be recommended” score of all 26 organizations, earned just 3.66 out of a total score of 5 in Unlock Aid’s survey.

And then there were those at the bottom of the charts: in particular, the Washington, D.C.-based development giant Chemonics. The contractor ranked last in every category of the survey, from treating subawardees with fairness and respect; to demonstrating trustworthiness and accountability; to providing transparent, open communication.

Read: The best — and worst — primes. Subs rank the industry's biggest players (Pro)

See also: How much do USAID primes spend on subawards? (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 which have been viewed the most in the past 10 days.

The African Development Bank has approved an $8 million loan to construct a solar photovoltaic power plant in Zambia.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development announced a €10 million ($10.8 million) project to help advance the competitiveness of the private sector and boost small and medium-sized enterprises in Serbia.

The United Nations is seeking partners for the design, implementation, and monitoring of Accelerated Education Programmes for out-of-school children and adolescents in Uganda.

USAID opened a $90 million grant opportunity to create a rapid response mechanism to tackle humanitarian needs in Ethiopia.

The World Bank Group announced a $100 million investment to promote biodiversity and sustainable development in Ecuador.

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Olives, wine, and ODA

Foreign aid may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Italy, Greece, and Spain — but it turns out northern Europe’s sunnier neighbors are on the rise when it comes to official development assistance. Southern European countries have been gradually boosting their ODA contributions, with Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Croatia, and Malta disbursing 22% more in 2022 than they did the year prior.

All in, these six countries spent just a fraction of what the United States — the world’s largest donor — contributed during the same year.

But still, their assistance totaled $12 billion in 2022 — the last year for which detailed data is available from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Among the six, Malta’s aid spending grew the most over five years, followed by Croatia. From $34 million in 2018, Malta’s foreign assistance grew to $60 million in 2022 — an 88.2% increase.

Italy is the largest contributor of aid in the region, a trend that’s ticked upward in recent years. In 2018, the country gave $4.9 billion in international assistance. By 2022, that rose to $6.6 billion.

Despite all those gains, however, southern Europe is still falling short of the international standard — giving 0.7% of gross national income to ODA. It’s a goal that very few countries have actually achieved, but Portugal — which gave $523 million in aid in 2022 — ranked the lowest of the region.

The land of port, seafood, and pastel de nata gave just 0.19% of its GNI to aid in 2023, according to OECD data.

Read: How much do southern European donors spend on development aid? (Pro)

In other ODA news

The United Kingdom has committed to sticking with the standard set by the country’s former Conservative government — and it will not return to spending 0.7% of its gross national income on international aid until at least 2030. Many across the sector are left disappointed with this news, especially after the ruling Labour Party pledged earlier this year to restore development spending to 0.7% of GNI “as soon as fiscal circumstances allow.”

Instead, my colleague Rob Merrick tells me cuts in U.K. aid look inevitable, and that the aid spending ratio will remain around 0.5%.

“The Chancellor has today confirmed the UK’s overseas aid budget will be cut in 2024; and become the first ever Labour Chancellor to spend less on aid than a prior Conservative government did,” Ian Mitchell, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development, tells Rob.

It was a move criticized by billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates, who published a statement after the Labour Party released its first budget since coming into power this year.
“Our foundation’s partnership in the UK is based on our shared values of solidarity, fairness, and a belief that anyone, anywhere, should be able to live and work with dignity to achieve their full potential. I hope to see the UK chart a path back to the commitments that demonstrate this global outlook in action,” Gates wrote.

Read: UK aid on track to stay at 0.5% for rest of the decade

+ Catch up on all the latest news in U.K. aid.

Impossible to (family) plan

The U.S. election is on the minds of nearly everyone in the development world — especially those working in reproductive health. That’s especially true for the United Nations Population Fund, an organization that’s long been a favorite target for both Republicans and the next potential U.S. president: Donald Trump.

With the election just one day away, UNFPA is bracing itself for over $160 million in cuts if Trump wins, my colleague Colum Lynch reports. That’s more than double the $70 million cut by the Trump administration last time he was in power, and a steep setback after the Biden administration contributed more to UNFPA than any other in U.S. history.

UNFPA provides reproductive health services and education to women and girls in more than 150 countries. The organization has long battled funding restraints, as every Republican president since Ronald Reagan has halted its funding, and every Democratic president has restored it.

Craig Lasher, a senior fellow at Population Action International, tells Colum that cuts were “a virtual certainty, like death and taxes.”

Read: Will Trump gut UN family planning funds ... again?

+ On Nov. 12, Devex will host a roundtable of experts with firsthand experience of politics and aid in the U.S. to discuss the election outcome and its ramifications — from funding and leadership to LGBTQ+ and reproductive rights. Save your spot now.

This one’s for the farmers

While reproductive health braces for impact, African agriculture is getting a boost.

The governments of Norway, the United States, the United Kingdom, and South Korea have teamed up to create a multimillion-dollar fund called FASA — one that will funnel more money into those investing in small and medium-sized agricultural businesses throughout the continent.

With nearly $80 million, FASA, which stands for Financing for Agricultural SMEs in Africa, aims to unlock financing for 1,000 SMEs on the African continent, derisking future investments by providing subordinated capital to each fund.

That capital, which will come in the form of equity or debt, can act as a cushion for future stakeholders — and absorb any losses a business faces before senior investors are affected. And over the next 10 years, those behind FASA hope it can support not just those thousand businesses, but the 70,000 jobs and over 1 million smallholder farmers they support.
“It’s a solution to not only saving lives and feeding people — it’s a huge development opportunity,” says Anne Beathe Tvinnereim, Norway’s minister of international development.

Read: Multimillion-dollar fund aims to fill Africa’s agribusiness financing gap (Pro)

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