It’s February 2026, and by now, we’ve all heard it more times than we can count. Bilateral foreign assistance is slowing down, and the aid sector is looking for other players to fill the gap. Increasingly, that’s meant turning toward foundations — a group of funders that spent $12.5 billion on development in 2023, according to the latest data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
So, we took a closer look: Who spent the most on global development, and what does that mean for a sector that the aid world is relying on more than ever before?
Also in this edition: A chat with Germany’s development head, and the latest funding news on U.S. foreign assistance.
Picking up the tab
For those that follow the philanthropic space, the answer is no surprise. In 2023, the Gates Foundation spent $5.47 billion on development projects across the world. That made the foundation the largest philanthropic donor on the planet, two years before Bill Gates, the organization’s cofounder, announced he would be giving away nearly all his personal wealth — a whopping $200 billion — over the next two decades.
“2025 may be and is likely to be the first year of this century [that] preventable child mortality actually rises rather than declines. Where we see an increase in preventable deaths, in HIV, tuberculosis and malaria,” said Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman in a press briefing centered on that announcement, which took place in May of 2025. “And so we want to do everything we can to offset that.”
Next up was the Mastercard Foundation, the philanthropic group linked to the American payment card service Mastercard Inc. The organization spent $1.27 billion on education and financial inclusion in 2023 — and one year later, its spending on programs alone reached nearly $1.7 billion.
Both the Gates and Mastercard foundations’ spending illustrates a larger trend throughout the sector: From 2022 to 2023, philanthropic donors increased their spending on development by 8%, while the world's 10 largest groups elevated their giving by 16.4%, roughly twice the sector’s overall growth rate.
Read: Who are the 10 largest philanthropies focused on development? (Pro)
Further reading: Which countries did Gates and other philanthropies fund the most? (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 Science Granting Councils Initiative has launched a CA$500,000 grant call to establish and operationalize a capacity strengthening hub in sub-Saharan Africa.
Swedfund International has announced a €15 million ($17.7 million) investment to scale nature-based climate projects in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia.
The Rockefeller Foundation has launched a $1.1 million clean-cooking accelerator initiative to scale modern cooking technologies in Africa.
The Development Bank of Nigeria has issued a request for prequalification for an expert engagement framework on climate finance in Nigeria.
Wellcome has launched its £2.5 million ($3.4 million) Climate Impacts Awards to drive action worldwide by making the health effects of climate change visible.
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A gap too wide
Despite an increase in spending, philanthropy cannot realistically fill the gap left by dropping government budgets. In 2024, global official development assistance fell by about $15 billion from the year prior, according to an analysis from the Washington, D.C.-based think tank, the Center for Global Development — almost twice the Gates Foundation’s entire budget for 2024.
2025 saw even steeper cuts, not just in the United States, but across the world. And for the managing director of Germany’s development agency, GIZ, those slashes will “haunt us in the future.”
“If people suffer from hunger and poverty that provokes unrest and conflict,” GIZ’s Ingrid-Gabriela Hoven told my colleague Jesse Chase-Lubitz at this month’s Munich Security Conference. “More than ever, development in the DDD [defense-diplomacy-development] nexus should be uplifted in the debate. But it is not. This is my frank perception.”
While Germany is the world’s second-largest development donor, the country is facing aid cuts of its own. Earlier this year, Jesse reported that a reform document published by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development — which oversees GIZ — noted a continuation of last year’s 50% cuts to humanitarian aid, and a 3% drop in spending from 2025 to 2026.
Read: German development agency head — cuts ‘will haunt us in the future’ (Pro)
More on Germany: Germany charts a new course for global aid
Glass half full
Others are more optimistic. Jesse also stopped U.S. Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware, in the halls of the Munich Security Conference — and the lawmaker seemed in markedly brighter spirits than Hoven.
“There is much more money than you would think,” Coons told Jesse. “If you assume that DOGE [the short-lived Department of Government Efficiency] destroyed all of our development infrastructure and it’s gone, it’s not gone. But to restore it to being healthy, to restore it to being viable, is going to take a lot of work.”
In a recent report issued by the USAID Office of the Inspector General, the watchdog agency found that the Trump administration terminated $76.5 billion in foreign assistance awards, nearly 50% of USAID’s $159 billion portfolio. The losses were steep — but earlier this month, Capitol Hill passed a foreign affairs bill with a $50 billion tab. While that’s roughly 16% lower than the country’s spending bill in 2025, it’s a $20 billion jump from President Donald Trump’s budget request.
“There have long been Republicans who understand that development strengthens U.S. global leadership and security,” said Coons. “Those partnerships ebb and flow with politics, but they’re still there.”
Read: ‘Much more money than you would think’ in US development, says US senator (Pro)
Dig further: US Congress passes $50 billion foreign affairs bill
Case in point
From my base in Washington, D.C., that’s exactly what I’ve been keeping my eye on.
Last week, I noticed a slew of new funding commitments coming from the U.S. government — including those at the first meeting of the Board for Peace, which Trump established to oversee reconstruction, stabilization, and governance in the conflict-battered Gaza Strip.
On Thursday, Trump announced the U.S. would contribute $10 billion to the Board of Peace, which was followed by $7 billion in pledges from nine newly minted member countries. The Board of Peace is controversial: It’s unclear exactly how the organization would operate, and whether it would sidestep the work of the United Nations. But in February 2025, the World Bank estimated that it would take some $53.2 billion to rebuild Gaza, a territory that’s been embroiled in conflict for nearly two-and-a-half years.
“We’ve come up with solutions,” said Trump, speaking at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. “This is very little talk, all action. First time.”
Trump added that the Board of Peace will “almost be looking over the United Nations and making sure it runs properly,” adding that his newly created board will “strengthen up” the multilateral institution. It’s unclear whether Trump has formally requested that $10 billion commitment from Congress, which would be required for the funds to go through.
While the Board of Peace is a more unusual example of U.S. foreign affairs spending, it’s not the only one. Also last week, the State Department announced a $40 million grant to the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, a Mexico-based agricultural research institution, in the name of “America first leadership in crop research.” And earlier this month, the State Department announced it would be contributing $6 million in humanitarian assistance to Cuba, coordinated through the Catholic Church and Caritas.
Related reading: US State Department proposes humanitarian overhaul
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About the author
Elissa Miolene
Elissa Miolene reports on USAID and the U.S. government at Devex. She previously covered education at The San Jose Mercury News, and has written for outlets like The Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, Washingtonian magazine, among others. Before shifting to journalism, Elissa led communications for humanitarian agencies in the United States, East Africa, and South Asia.
