Money Matters: Who does the Inter-American Development Bank actually fund?

Last week, my colleague Jesse Chase-Lubitz and I brought you news from two different corners of the Western Hemisphere.

I was covering the world’s largest gathering on gender equality in New York City, where temperatures swung from a sunny 70 degrees Fahrenheit (21 degrees Celsius) to a snowy 30 F (minus 1 C) in just three days. Jesse was attending the Inter-American Development Bank’s annual meetings in Paraguay, where the weather held a blissful, balmy heat.

On the face of it, our weeks couldn’t have felt more different. But at both conferences, there was one thing attendees could not stop talking about: funding, and who will hold development’s purse strings now that the United States has pulled away.

Read on to get the latest funding news from IDB, the Commission on the Status of Women, or CSW,  and beyond — including a $4.5 billion funding platform launched by the U.S. government.

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Live from Asunción

At the IDB meetings, conversations around funding revolved around one thing: private investment. That is a growing and effective way to fund development in Latin America, Jesse tells me, and it’s evidenced by the fact that 1,600 private sector reps made their way to the event.

The IDB Group — which is made up of the Inter-American Development Bank, IDB Invest, and IDB Lab — is Latin America’s core multilateral financial institution. This year’s annual meeting kicked off with a $3.5 billion capital increase for IDB Invest, the bank’s private sector arm, a move that allows the institution to take on more risk, expand its investments, and push financing to new markets.

“We recognize that development cannot rely on the public sector alone,” Ilan Goldfajn, the head of IDB, told Jesse over email. “The scale of investment needed in infrastructure, energy, and productive sectors requires private capital involvement.”

So, what does that actually mean? Our development analyst Alecsondra Kieren Si takes a closer look at IDB’s past for clues to its future. She finds that in 2024, one of IDB’s central means of engagement was through private sector contracts to governments — and that throughout the year, the bank awarded 7,000 of those contracts worth $2.4 billion. Infrastructure, health systems, and urban drainage and water supply were among the top sectors financed, Alecsondra finds, the vast majority of which were found in Latin America and the Caribbean.

It’s all a piece of a global development puzzle that every day seems to become more critical — and as official development assistance continues to slow, more are looking toward banks such as IDB to fill the gap.

Read: Who were IDB's top contractors of 2024? (Pro)

ICMYI: IDB to unlock $3.5B increase with US signing on

More on the IDB meetings: Latin America has what the world needs

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 provided $283 million in funding to strengthen road connectivity in Paraguay.

The World Bank has approved a $215.9 million project to support agricultural development in Burkina Faso.

The African Development Bank has launched a $28 million initiative to advance economic growth in Mozambique.

The United Nations is seeking a qualified consulting firm to develop a climate-related disaster risk reduction plan in Egypt.

The Japan International Cooperation Agency has launched a call for proposals to conduct a detailed planning survey to improve the water quality of the Tula River Basin in Morocco.

+ Stay ahead in this crucial time for global development by signing up for a Devex Pro Funding membership today and gain unlimited access to the latest funding opportunities from top donors as well as the industry intelligence to win them. Sign up with a five-day free trial now.

Keeping tabs

Meanwhile, the United Nations’ headquarters was buzzing with gender experts — many of whom had their eyes on a multimillion budget line passed by the U.S. Congress earlier this year. In early February, lawmakers brought $50 billion to the foreign affairs table, $607.5 million of which were earmarked for reproductive health and family planning.

But with a White House that seems intent on dissolving such funding, it’s unclear exactly how — or if — that money will actually flow.

“The money is there now,” Nabeeha Kazi Hutchins, the president of PAI, told me last week. “Now we need to ensure that it’s programmed, that those funds are released, and that they are released for family planning and reproductive health care that is grounded in evidence, that is grounded in science, that is grounded in the needs and preferences of people.”

Complicating things further is the Trump administration’s expansion of the Mexico City Policy — now called the Promoting Human Flourishing in Foreign Assistance Act policy — that bars organizations from receiving U.S. aid if they have any programs related to abortion, “gender ideology,” or diversity, equity and inclusion.

“It is great news for us to see that [the money is] there,” said Kazi Hutchins. But even so, she added, “We could see money going through different mechanisms, different entities.”

Read: US pulls away from family planning. What about the $600M saved for it?

Catch up on CSW: A tale of two movements — all at the same time

Wealth in health

Case in point: Last week, the U.S. State Department launched a platform to engage nonprofits in the country’s “America First” bilateral health deals.
Over the last three months, the U.S. has launched partnerships with two dozen countries across the world, aiming to strengthen national health systems by investing alongside target countries. This new platform — which has an estimated funding cap of $4.5 billion — invites nonprofits, universities, faith-based organizations, and others to apply for global health projects beneath those funding deals.

The platform is a huge deal for those that are trying to decipher America’s global health strategy, especially because, over the last year, the State Department has heavily criticized international aid organizations — accusing them of being bloated with overhead costs, rife with duplication, and holding “perverse incentives.” Now, it seems the agency might be rethinking that approach, with the platform noting it will disburse up to 100 awards of $500,000 to $250 million over the next five years.

This mechanism allows the State Department to “identify and support projects that complement, extend, and/or fill identified gaps in the implementation” of the bilateral agreements, writes our senior health reporter Sara Jerving, who took a closer look at the platform last week.

Crucially, it looks like a valuable and surprising opportunity for NGOs to engage with government aid funding. Is the State Department inching back toward a more conventional aid model?

Read more: US launches $4.5B platform inviting NGO support for bilateral health deals

Much-wellcomed

The State Department isn’t the only one rolling out the cash. Since 1936, London-based foundation Wellcome has been funding health-focused projects, research, and programs, with its £39.9 billion investment portfolio making it one of the largest philanthropies in the world.

As ever, Alecsondra’s eyes remain on anyone giving money — and last year, Wellcome’s charitable spend was £1.9 billion — equivalent to around $2.5 billion — although that does include a small amount of nongrant funding. That’s a roughly 27% increase from 2023-2024, Alecsondra writes, noting that Wellcome now has 2,723 active grants worth £7.3 billion.

It’s all part of Wellcome’s larger, 10-year strategy to spend £16 billion (approximately $21 billion) between 2022 and 2032, with a focus on climate change and health, infectious diseases, and mental health. The trust’s largest contributions went toward universities in the United Kingdom, with the University of Oxford taking home 66 grants worth £217.4 million in 2024-25, although some of that money was later granted on to organizations in the global south.

During the same time period, universities, foundations and organizations in the global south got Wellcome cash directly too, including Kenya’s Science for Africa Foundation, and South Africa’s Biovac Institute and University of Cape Town.

For those watching dwindling official development assistance dollars, a commitment like Wellcome’s is well-received — especially because the trust’s investment portfolio has grown at an average annual rate of 11.7% per year, according to the organization.

“Wellcome has existed since 1936, and we intend to be here to fund health science for a very long time to come,” Wellcome states on its website.

Read: Wellcome’s top grantees in fiscal year 2024-2025 (Pro)

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Coming up

Water security | Wednesday, March 18, 10 a.m. ET

Devex reporter Ayenat Mersie speaks with Jason Morrison, president of the Pacific Institute, and Eileen Burke, global lead for water resources at the World Bank, about water security and how it impacts development.

Sign up here.

The benefits of philanthropic loans | Thursday, March 19, 11 a.m. ET

Devex Pro Funding Editor Raquel Alcega speaks with Irene Pritzker, chair and cofounder of the IDP Foundation, about why it has used concessional loans in place of grant funding and what the advantages of this model are.

Sign up here.

Reimaging the global health architecture | Friday, March 20, 10 a.m. ET

Devex Senior Editor Rumbi Chakamba speaks with Donald Kaberuka, high representative for financing the union at the African Union, on how rapid shifts have changed the global health architecture and what a more sustainable model might look like.

Sign up here.

The institutions helping NGOs connect with foundations | Monday, March 23, 10.30 a.m. ET

Raquel Alcega speaks with Naghma Mulla, CEO of the EdelGive Foundation, about how philanthropic asset managers are acting as a bridge between foundations and the NGOs they fund.

Sign up here. 

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