From 30 June to 3 July 2025, heads of state and government are gathering in Sevilla, Spain, for the Fourth Financing for Development Conference (FFD4), helping shape the future of development co-operation.
The Compromiso de Sevilla invites foundations to play a key role in catalytic capital initiatives. The explicit mention of philanthropy is a significant step in acknowledging its diverse roles in support of sustainable development: together, international foundations and organisations based in developing countries have contributed USD 42 billion between 2016 and 2019.
Given the shifting landscape of development finance, with official development assistance from members of the OECD Development Assistance Committee declining by 7.1% real-term in 2024, and public resources being reallocated to other priorities such as defence, there is an opportunity for philanthropy to strengthen its role, and drive system-level change by fostering meaningful, multi-stakeholder collaboration (1), providing technical expertise and risk-tolerant capital, and supporting innovation and inclusive community engagement.
Although better mechanisms to track collaboration efforts more broadly are pending, evidence indicates that foundations are already engaging in multistakeholder collaboration and are well positioned to expand these efforts and unlock private capital at scale. Since 2014, 18 percent of blended finance transactions recorded annually in Convergence’s historical deals database have involved at least one foundation (Convergence, 2024). From 2022-2024, philanthropic investors deployed USD 100 million in catalytic capital (Convergence, 2025). While foundations account for just 3 percent of total blended finance transactions to date, their role is pivotal: they de-risk transactions, increasingly support underfunded priority areas that are critical for development, like the health and climate intersection(2) (Foundation S - The Sanofi Collective; Reaching the Last Mile; The Rockefeller Foundation; SEEK Development; adelphi consult; AfriCatalyst (2025), fund early-stage initiatives, and co-invest with DFIs and MDBs to align risk and attract private investment (Convergence, 2025).
While not a substitute for the scale of investment offered by DAC donors and development banks, philanthropies play an important role in catalysing additional investment, supporting underfunded priority areas and make riskier investments that larger institutional funders may be less inclined in making
The moment is ripe for philanthropy to step up not only as funders, but as strategic partners who can bridge the public and private sectors and enable sustainable investment at scale.
Beyond fostering effective multistakeholder partnerships and providing catalytic capital, philanthropic activity aligns with the broad priorities set out in the FFD4 Outcome Document. Philanthropy can help national development banks and other domestic actors harness local knowledge and align with country-led priorities. In 2022, foundations joined donors to launch the Donor Statement Supporting Local Development, committing to shift and share power, channel high-quality funding as directly as possible, and publicly advocate for locally-led development (3). At the same time, locally-based domestic foundations, while often overlooked, offer deep contextual knowledge, trusted relationships within communities, and in-kind support that directly benefits local actors. However, until now, these organisations were excluded from blended finance transactions, and their collaboration with development agencies and banks remains, at best, anecdotal.
By enabling locally-anchored organisations to access finance, and supporting domestic resource mobilisation, capacity building, and policy innovation, philanthropic capital aligns with the FFD4 Outcome Document’s calls for demand-based institutional, technological and human capacity building support to developing countries for fiscal systems and domestic resource mobilisation. At the same time, as the WINGS Call to Action on Solidarity Amid Aid Cuts points out, philanthropy is itself a source of financing. Unlocking more and better philanthropic resources, especially at the local level, can help grow and diversify the pool of resources available for the common good, for example, leveraging philanthropy's comparative advantage in supporting independent civil society. While philanthropy should not and will not replace the role of governments, it can contribute significantly through long-term vision and collective investment. There is major potential to strengthen the infrastructure for giving, including community funds, local giving platforms, innovation and movements, critical data and research, advocacy for enabling environments, and philanthropy networks.
Philanthropy’s Enhanced Role in a Renewed Global Financing Framework
In response to the FFD4 Outcome Document, and building on prior collective commitments (4), members and partners of OECD netFWD affirm their intention to:
1. (Re)commit to multilateralism, by engaging in catalytic capital Initiatives via Public-Private-Philanthropic Partnerships
· Building on previous commitments to deepen collaboration, participate in structured dialogue with bilateral and multilateral donors, and development finance institutions (DFIs), to foster mutual understanding, enhance coordination – including regarding respective roles in blended finance structures – and align objectives and timelines.
· Re-commit to mobilising additional capital in low-income countries via blended finance, debt swaps, and fiscal sponsoring, and continuing working with ODA to explore other innovative mechanisms.
· Support independent collection of data about public-private-philanthropy partnerships to improve transparency, enhance accountability, and identify further opportunities for synergies and collaboration.
2. Draw on philanthropy’s strong local ties to move beyond top-down, North-led paradigms
· Work to ensure that Public-Private-Philanthropic partnerships based around blended finance models include domestic philanthropic representatives to identify beneficiaries and provide technical assistance.
· Continue to advocate for the inclusion of philanthropy- especially from developing countries at the global policy table.
· Expand efforts to channel funding towards local women’s organisations, youth and grassroots funds. Commit to scaling up funding through locally based re-granting organisations in developing countries (5).
3. Support unlocking more resources in developing countries
· Position philanthropy as a strategic partner in local development finance ecosystems
Elevate the role of philanthropic capital not only as a funder, but as a systems-level actor that can support domestic resource mobilisation and fiscal accountability, scale locally-led solutions linked to beneficiary government priorities, crowd-in private finance by engaging in PPPPs and strengthen policy innovation.
· Unlock and diversify philanthropic resources, especially at the local level
Commit to mobilising more and better philanthropic capital, particularly from local donors, communities and institutions, to diversify the resource base for the common good and further build local capacity.
· Invest in infrastructure for giving
Fund the ecosystems that make philanthropic mobilisation possible, such as community funds, local giving platforms, data and research, innovation hubs, advocacy for enabling environments and philanthropy networks.
(1) For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, foundations partnered with international organisations and donors, such as through the South Africa Solidarity Fund and the Africa Donor Collective. Elsewhere, philanthropy has contributed to the design of frameworks like the Guiding Principles for Financing Climate and Health Solutions, which set a shared cross-sectoral vision for climate-health financing.
(2) Between 2018 and 2023, funding for climate and health initiatives from philanthropies grew significantly, increasing from approximately USD 9 million in 2018 to USD 112 million in 2023, Foundation S - The Sanofi Collective; Reaching the Last Mile; The Rockefeller Foundation; SEEK Development; adelphi consult; AfriCatalyst (2025).
(3) New Commitments to Donor Statement Supporting Locally Led Development - Hilton Foundation
(4) These include the OECD netFWD Statement on Contribution of private philanthropies to the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact, the OECD netFWD Statement on Philanthropy’s Vision for the UN Summit of the Future, the WINGS Call to Action on Solidarity Amid Aid Cuts, and the International Education Funders Group’s Statement on Financing Education through All Available Tools.
(5) These funds have several benefits, including their local knowledge and expertise, their absorptive capacity, their potential to help advance human rights and social justice in the context of oppressive systems and environments, catalyse community philanthropy as well as their potential to close local project financing gaps through instruments like micro-grants (OECD, 2024).