New leadership ushers sea change at CIFF

Michael Anderson, CEO of the Children's Investment Fund Foundation. Photo by: Alessandra Benedetti / Food and Agriculture Organization An independent philanthropic organization based in the U.K., the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation aims to transform the lives of poor and vulnerable children in developing countries through strategies that have lasting impact. CIFF — which has offices in Nairobi, Kenya, and New Delhi, India — works in the areas of education, children and mother’s health and nutrition, and climate change. The foundation was created in 2003 by British hedge fund manager Christopher Hohn and his former wife Jamie Cooper. Initially, CIFF was funded solely from the donations made by Hohn’s private investment fund, The Children Investment. The foundation later on invested its own money in a diverse portfolio of financial investments. After contributing more than $1.9 billion to CIFF, TCI decided to stop donating in 2014 after it deemed the foundation large enough to run without its contributions. Indeed, CIFF has continued to grow since and is currently sitting on an endowment worth $4 billion. Since its inception over a decade ago, the foundation has disbursed over $380 million in grants. Total disbursements in 2014 reached $122 million, of which half was channeled to sub-Saharan Africa. PRIORITIES AND PROGRAMS In 2013, Cooper stepped down as president and chair of CIFF and was replaced by Michael Anderson. Before joining CIFF, Anderson served as U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron’s special envoy for the U.N. development goals and director general for policy and global programs at the U.K. Department for International Development. Together with Hunada Nouss, CIFF’s new chief operating officer, Anderson reorganized the foundation’s work into four main areas: nutrition, health, education and climate change. Each of the four main areas is managed by an executive director who is in charge of developing an investment strategy around the foundation’s priorities and is also involved in identifying potential partners. Under the new leadership, CIFF also launched special initiatives on deworming and humanitarian activities. To date, the foundation has ongoing multiyear grant commitments amounting to $634.8 million. Nutrition (Total: $196.8 million) Executive director: Augustin Flory CIFF works with its partners to support programs addressing the two alarming manifestations of undernutrition: stunting and wasting. Stunting affects 1 in 4 children and is prevalent in Africa and Asia. Wasting is a manifestation of severe acute malnutrition, which affects 17 million children under 5 years old and is the cause of 1 million deaths each year. By 2020, the foundation aims to reduce stunting by 30 percent in five priority countries — Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Rwanda and India — and successfully treat 1 million severe acute malnutrition cases per year globally. Health (Total $158.9 million) Executive director: Alvaro Bermejo The foundation hopes to see a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is celebrated, and where all women and children thrive. It focuses on relatively neglected aspects within global health, such as child survival, pediatric AIDS and adolescent health. In 2014, the foundation donated $25 million to GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance to provide 40 million women and girls with human papillomavirus vaccines to protect them from cervical cancer. CIFF has been working on the prevention of child exploitation and slavery in recent years as well. Education Executive Director Peter Colenso is currently serving as the acting head of the health focus area, as incoming Executive Director Alvaro Bermejo will assume his post Dec. 1. A respected and well-known figure in global health, Bermejo is currently the executive director of the International HIV/AIDS Alliance. Climate change ($154.7 million) Executive director: Kate Hampton Children, especially those in developing countries, are among the most vulnerable to the impact of climate change, whether by getting infected with vector-borne diseases, or being caught up in droughts, floods or food insecurity. CIFF’s climate investments focus on climate-smart urbanization, energy transformation and sustainable land use. In climate-smart urbanization, the foundation supports the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group in taking action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In energy transformation, CIFF investments include grants related to carbon pricing, renewable energy and low-carbon development strategies, while in sustainable land use, it is focused on creating an enabling condition to implement the Forest Code — a land use regulation that will help Brazil achieve net zero deforestation by 2030. CIFF also campaigns for the near-elimination of hydrofluorocarbons and other fluorinated gases in the European Union. Education ($75.7 million) Executive director: Peter Colenso CIFF believes “early childhood education is the vaccine of education” and aims to ensure that every child is ready for school — mentally, emotionally and physically — by providing quality early childhood education. The foundation works with partners to deliver such services, with a focus on these three areas: ● Transform the global education agenda through evidence and advocacy. ● Test and scale public sector delivery solutions. ● Shape markets to harness private sector delivery for the poor. Deworming ($37.8 million) CIFF supports the World Health Organization’s goal of treating 75 percent of at-risk school-age and preschool-age children by 2020. In this regard, it is providing support to governments to encourage them to institutionalize deworming programs. In 2014, the foundation pledged $50 million to scale up deworming efforts globally and has approved the largest deworming program in India. Humanitarian ($10.9 million) The foundation earmarked $10.9 million for the global response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. CIFF is working with organizations involved in supporting front-line health workers and helping maintain health systems in the region, such as the International Medical Corps, Save the Children and the British Red Cross. GRANT-MAKING Partnerships are critical to CIFF’s work. The foundation has been working closely with governments, the private sector, international and local nongovernmental organizations, other foundations and donors, universities, and civil society to deliver its programs. But CIFF does not accept unsolicited proposals from individuals and organizations. Instead it does its own research to identify potential partners and grantees. After receiving an invitation to submit a proposal, the potential partner prepares a concept note for consideration by the CIFF’s executive team. If approved, the foundation works in collaboration with the partner to draft an investment memo. The average time to write an investment memo is 17 weeks after the concept note is approved. The following are the three biggest grant-making instruments in CIFF’s current portfolio: The Power of Nutrition ($55 million): CIFF partners with the World Bank and UNICEF to tackle undernutrition in the poorest countries. Funders include the U.K. Department for International Development and UBS Optimus Foundation. Reducing Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV in Zimbabwe ($45 million): The program aims to reduce mother-to-child transmission of HIV in Zimbabwe. CIFF’s partner organizations are the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation and Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Health and Child Care. Community Management of Acute Malnutrition in Nigeria($32.1 million): CIFF works with the government of Nigeria and UNICEF to integrate community treatment for severely acute malnourished children at scale into the Nigerian health service. The following groups and foundations received the largest financial support from CIFF in 2014: ● African Leaders for Malaria Alliance ● Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation ● Ethiopian Federal Ministry of Health ● European Climate Change Action ● Evidence Action ● GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance ● RTI International ● Sesame Workshop ● UNICEF WAY FORWARD CIFF has gone and will continue to go through several changes under its new leadership. The foundation aims to expand its grant portfolio from 3 percent of the value of its endowment fund to 4 percent in coming years. It has also boosted staff capacity, adding 30 team members across its offices, and has established four sectoral teams to manage each of its priority areas. In grant contracting, the foundation changed its approach on multiyear programs. Under the new approach, there will only be one contract for the life of the grant, whereas previously, there is a separate contract for each year. This was done to reduce the administrative burden of the foundation and its grantees. In addition, CIFF intends to develop new tools for financial management, new metrics for measuring the effectiveness and impact of CIFF’s work, and a new survey of stakeholders to evaluate the effectiveness of the foundation as a partner. Under Anderson’s leadership, CIFF is working toward creating a higher level of impact, while maintaining flexibility to allow it to adapt quickly to emerging needs. CIFF is currently conducting a strategy refresh exercise to further define its investments principles — evidence-based and data-driven — and at the same time, sharpen its approach to ensure lasting impact. It will also define new models for allocating staff and resources to efficiently and effectively fulfill the foundation’s mission. In conjunction, the foundation is currently developing its first five-year strategy and business plan, which is expected to be finalized by the end of 2015.