Top 2017 DFID private sector implementers
Using U.K. Department for International Development disbursements data for 2017, Devex determined which private sector implementers of DFID-funded programs received the most funding from the department in 2017. We take a close look at the top 10 of that list, including descriptions of the sectors and locations of DFID-funded programs.
Each month, the U.K. Department for International Development releases a public report of its disbursements above a threshold of 500 pounds. These reports list everything the department has spent its money on that month — from office equipment to contributions to multilateral development funds. By aggregating these transactions for all of 2017, cleaning the data, and analyzing it, Devex has determined which organizations received the most DFID funding over the course of 2017. While DFID’s disbursements reports encompass all kinds of costs, invariably the organizations that receive the most funding are its program implementers. Below we list the top 10 private sector contractors to DFID. Many of them are familiar names in the U.K. and international aid communities. In fact, there are many repeat appearances from our last analysis in 2015. A note about the data and methodology used to compile this list: While the public reports refer to the transactions they contain as “disbursements,” they’re actually listed in DFID’s DevTracker under each program’s “expenditures.” The semantics are important, because disbursements in DFID parlance refer to the amount placed at the disposal of an implementing agency or country, while “expenditures” refer to spending on final goods or services. The reports contain both: expenditures for transactions between DFID and final service or goods providers; and disbursements for programs in which DFID delegated procurement to a managing entity, such as a multilateral development bank or fund manager. In this regard, the transactions are as granular as possible from the perspective of DFID in the context of each program. This also means our data doesn’t refer to newly awarded contracts won during 2017, but rather income that contractors generate from previously awarded contracts. Note that this list only ranks DFID funding paid to private sector organizations — not NGOs, civil society organizations, charities, nonprofits, academic institutions, or public agencies. Stay tuned for our coverage of DFID for more information about how these types of entities fared in the market for DFID funding in 2017. 1. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Total DFID disbursements in 2017: 92.05 million pounds Headquarters: London PwC topped the list of DFID’s private sector contractors again in 2017, ranking first in both 2015 and 2016 as well. The assurance, tax, and consulting firm was paid for work across a variety of sectors and geographies, such as private sector development in the Democratic Republic of Congo, urban infrastructure work in DFID-focus countries, and management of the Good Governance Fund for public sector reform in the Balkans and Central Asia. PwC’s position at the top of the list is largely due to their important role in a single project: 44 million pounds — or nearly half of DFID’s disbursements to the PwC in 2017 — went toward PwC’s work as fund manager of the Girls’ Education Challenge. The GEC is a 355 million pound initiative to help girls in developing countries overcome gender-specific barriers to enrolling and remaining in primary and junior secondary school. PwC was awarded the contract in 2012 to act as manager of the challenge’s funds, under which it implemented some projects itself, but also distributed the funding to many subcontractors, including Coffey International and Oxford Policy Management, for work in countries across Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. 2. Development Alternatives International (DAI) Total DFID disbursements in 2017: 86.50 million pounds Headquarters: Bethesda, Maryland (although most awards were won through DAI Europe, based in Apsley, U.K.) DAI has been an increasingly strong contender for DFID funded opportunities, having taken fifth place in the 2016 rankings with 82 million pounds, and third place in the 2015 rankings with 73 million pounds. They have presence in the U.K. through their Apsley office and through their acquisition of HTSPE Ltd in 2013, and U.K.-based Health Partners International and WISE Development in mid-2017. Thus, in this analysis, DFID disbursements to HTSPE are included as DAI’s, as are any disbursements to HPI or WISE that occurred after the data of the acquisition last year. DFID’s disbursements to DAI came from several large contracts, largely in agricultural and public governance projects, and mostly in Africa. The Land Investment for Transformation program in Ethiopia was their largest project in terms of disbursements, followed by the Private Enterprise Programme, also in Ethiopia. Both these programs were managed by the Ethiopian Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, perhaps indicating that DAI has a strong reputation and good local knowledge of working in the country. 3. Adam Smith International (ASI) Total DFID disbursements in 2017: 84.08 million pounds Headquarters: London It may surprise some to see ASI this high on the list of private sector contractors to DFID after they voluntarily withdrew from bidding for DFID-funded programs for a year in early 2017, after media allegations that the company falsified testimonials from project beneficiaries. The disbursements that account for ASI’s high position on this list come from contracts signed before the scandal — including two Nigerian projects signed in 2014 for solar power and economic development in the country’s north. They also worked with PwC on the private sector development program in the DRC, as well as projects in education in northern Pakistan and climate smart agriculture in Eastern and Southern Africa. 4. Palladium Total DFID disbursements in 2017: 78.11 million pounds Headquarters: Brisbane, Australia The Palladium Group came in the top five once again in 2017, after having received 99.4 million pounds in 2016 and 71 million pounds in 2015. In 2017, more than one-quarter of its DFID disbursements came from the Maternal and Newborn Child Health Programme in northern Nigeria, in which they collaborated with AECOM and Crown Agents. They worked on a similar family planning project in rural Kenya, as well as on the Human Development Fund program in Tanzania. 5. KPMG Total DFID disbursements in 2017: 57.36 million pounds Headquarters: Amstelveen, Netherlands KPMG, like their “big four” counterpart PwC, derived most of their DFID income from global or multinational projects focused on a particular development sector or issue. Of their total disbursements, 51 million pounds came from two projects related to climate change resilience. One was the Building Resilience and Adaptation to Climate Extremes and Disasters — a program that started in 2013 and is set to finish in May 2018. Through the program, the U.K. gave 140 million pounds to the International Climate Fund, 110 million pounds of which was to be used in climate resilience and adaptation interventions in countries and communities most vulnerable to the effects of climate change — particularly the Sahel in Africa. KPMG was the main implementer of the program, but worked a great deal with the Overseas Development Institute, as well as HTSPE Limited (now a part of DAI). The other global program was the Forest Governance, Markets and Climate Project Worldwide — a similar intervention, but focused on the adaptation of forest-dependent markets and communities to climate change. 6. Crown Agents Bank Limited Total DFID disbursements in 2017: 48.59 million pounds Headquarters: Sutton, United Kingdom Crown Agents Bank derived most of its DFID funding from management of pooled funds destined to support fragile states. This includes the South Sudan Health Pooled Fund — a 188 million pound fund supporting health outcomes in the country between 2012 and 2018, blending funding from DFID, Sweden, Canada, Australia, and the EU. They also managed the Somalia Stability Fund II and the Somaliland Development Fund — the second and third biggest sources of DFID funds for the bank. Crown Agents Bank should not be conflated with Crown Agents, which is number nine on this list. The two entities legally separated when Crown Agents sold off its bank and investment management businesses in July 2015. However, many of the disbursements in our data are linked to contracts signed between Crown Agents and DFID prior to this date, and so the two frequently appear to have worked together on the same projects. 7. IMC Worldwide Limited Total DFID disbursements in 2017: 46.65 million pounds Headquarters: London Unlike the contractors higher on this list, IMC Worldwide is the first contractor that is earning most of its DFID funding in South Asia rather than Africa. Its largest projects currently under implementation are two education programs in Pakistan. These include the Punjab Education Support Program II and the Khyber Pukhtunkhwa Education Sector Program. These projects figure prominently on the company’s homepage, as does its work on the Rural Access Programme 3 in Nepal. 8. Oxford Policy Management Total DFID disbursements in 2017: 46.37 million pounds Headquarters: Oxford, U.K. OPM is an independent, employee-owned development consultancy focused on achieving development outcomes through public policy reform. Most of their work for DFID is technical advisory and research work on complex development challenges, or consulting directly with developing governments themselves. Among their largest DFID-funded programs currently are Climate Proofing Growth and Development in South Asia and Sub National Governance in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan. 9. Crown Agents Total DFID disbursements in 2017: 37.16 million pounds Headquarters: London Crown Agents’ work with DFID seemed to focus either on support of DFID’s global operations or programs, or on specific programs in health across Africa. In the former category, Crown Agents’ income from DFID stemmed from its work supporting humanitarian and emergency operations, as well as the Making All Voices Count program — a challenge funding technological innovations that facilitate better communication between developing governments and their citizens. In the latter category, Crown Agents was an active implementer of the South Sudan Health Pooled Fund, alongside its former colleagues at Crown Agents Bank Limited, as well as a sexual health program in Zimbabwe, a maternal and newborn health program in Nigeria, and a pan African program fighting schistosomiasis and intestinal helminths. 10. AECOM Total DFID disbursements in 2017: 34.18 million pounds Headquarters: Los Angeles, U.S. AECOM is hardly a newcomer to the international development sector, but they are a newcomer to this list. They didn’t appear in the top 10 list in either 2016 or 2015. In fact, they received only 4.28 million pounds from DFID in 2016. While they are an infrastructure-focused firm, their largest source of DFID funding was the same maternal and newborn health program in Nigeria that Crown Agents and Palladium worked on. From the transaction descriptions, it appears that AECOM provided some of the relief-related goods and materials for the program. They similarly collaborated with Palladium on their family planning project in Kenya, and have also worked on solar power in Nigeria and public health in Ghana. Devex interactive visualization and remaining top 20 implementers The Devex team will soon be releasing more analysis and an interactive visualization with the data used to compile this list. Here are the next top private sector contractors to DFID. 11. Mott Macdonald Total DFID disbursements in 2017: 30.58 million pounds Headquarters: Croydon, U.K. DFID disbursements to Cambridge Education Limited and Euroconsult BMB are added in Mott Macdonald’s total since they are part of the company’s group. 12. Coffey International Development Total DFID disbursements in 2017: 25.39 million pounds Headquarters: Sydney, Australia 13. McKinsey and Company Total DFID disbursements in 2017: 20.25 million pounds Headquarters: New York 14. Mannion Daniels Total DFID disbursements in 2017: 12.68 million pounds Headquarters: Bath, U.K. 15. IPE Global Private Limited Total DFID disbursements in 2017: 11.02 million pounds Headquarters: New Delhi, India 16. Options Consultancy Services* Total DFID disbursements in 2017: 8.37 million pounds Headquarters: London *Options is a private limited company, wholly owned by Marie Stopes International, which receives Options’ profits as aid gifts. 17. Cardno Total DFID disbursements in 2017: 7.97 million pounds Headquarters: Brisbane, Australia 18. Kenya Markets Trust Total DFID disbursements in 2017: 7.66 million pounds Headquarters: Nairobi, Kenya 19. WYG International Total DFID disbursements in 2017: 7.05 million pounds Headquarters: Leeds, United Kingdom 20. Maxwell Stamp Total DFID disbursements in 2017: 6.42 million pounds Headquarters: London
Each month, the U.K. Department for International Development releases a public report of its disbursements above a threshold of 500 pounds. These reports list everything the department has spent its money on that month — from office equipment to contributions to multilateral development funds. By aggregating these transactions for all of 2017, cleaning the data, and analyzing it, Devex has determined which organizations received the most DFID funding over the course of 2017.
While DFID’s disbursements reports encompass all kinds of costs, invariably the organizations that receive the most funding are its program implementers. Below we list the top 10 private sector contractors to DFID. Many of them are familiar names in the U.K. and international aid communities. In fact, there are many repeat appearances from our last analysis in 2015.
A note about the data and methodology used to compile this list: While the public reports refer to the transactions they contain as “disbursements,” they’re actually listed in DFID’s DevTracker under each program’s “expenditures.” The semantics are important, because disbursements in DFID parlance refer to the amount placed at the disposal of an implementing agency or country, while “expenditures” refer to spending on final goods or services. The reports contain both: expenditures for transactions between DFID and final service or goods providers; and disbursements for programs in which DFID delegated procurement to a managing entity, such as a multilateral development bank or fund manager. In this regard, the transactions are as granular as possible from the perspective of DFID in the context of each program. This also means our data doesn’t refer to newly awarded contracts won during 2017, but rather income that contractors generate from previously awarded contracts.
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Matthew Wolf works with the Devex Analytics team from Johannesburg in South Africa, helping improve our coverage of and insight into development work and funding around the world. He draws on work experience with Thomson Reuters in Africa, MENA and Latin America, where he helped uncover, pursue and win opportunities with local governments and donor agencies. He is interested in data-driven solutions to development challenges, results-based financing, and ICT4D.
