Development Co‑operation Profiles: IKEA Foundation
Table of contents
The IKEA Foundation was established in 1982 by Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of IKEA, alongside the INGKA Foundation and the IMAS Foundation.
Its activities are funded through financial resources generated by the IKEA business, while the foundation operates independently from IKEA. The foundation supports initiatives related to planetary health and climate change mitigation, with an emphasis on people-centred approaches. Its work focuses on promoting long-term change in high-emitting systems, including energy, land, food and forests, buildings, and transport. It also provides funding for emergency responses to humanitarian crises.
This profile presents verified data on development assistance allocations.1 See the Development Co-operation Profiles.
IKEA Foundation provided USD 330.9 million for development in 2024 through its cross-border funding. Compared to 2023, this amount represents an increase of 23.7% in real terms. Grants represented 100% of IKEA Foundation’s gross disbursements.
IKEA Foundation provided all of its development finance bilaterally in 2024, while 5.4% was channelled through multilateral organisations (earmarked contributions).
In 2024, the IKEA Foundation channelled its bilateral development finance mostly through non-governmental organisations (NGOs) (USD 264.3 million), public-private partnerships (PPPs) and private sector (USD 26.9 million) and universities, research institutes or think tanks (USD 19 million).
In 2024, IKEA Foundation provided USD 17.8 million to the multilateral system. All of this was non-core contributions earmarked for a specific country, region, theme or purpose channelled through UN organisations, UN funds and programmes.
The UN system received USD 17.8 million from IKEA Foundation in 2024. The most significant UN recipients were the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) (USD 14.2 million), the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) (USD 2.5 million) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) (USD 900 thousand).
In 2024, civil society organisations (CSOs) received USD 264.3 million of the IKEA Foundation’s gross bilateral finance, of which 10.4% was directed to developing country-based CSOs. Overall, 7.1% of total bilateral development finance was allocated to CSOs as core support, while 72.8% was earmarked to specific projects or programmes. From 2023 to 2024, the combined core and earmarked contributions for CSOs increased as a share of bilateral philanthropic development finance, from 77.1% to 79.9%.
Learn more about the DAC Recommendation on Enabling Civil Society in Development Co-operation and Humanitarian Aid.
In 2024, IKEA Foundation’s development finance was primarily focused on Africa and Asia (excluding the Middle East). USD 135.9 million was allocated to Africa and USD 54.2 million to Asia (excluding the Middle East), accounting respectively for 41.1% and 16.4% of gross bilateral development finance. A sum of USD 127.7 million (38.6%) was unallocated by region, mainly including multi-regional programmes, core support and research grants.
In 2024, 34.1% of gross development finance went to the top 10 recipients, most notably India (10.3%), Kenya (9.2%), and Uganda (4.9%).
Least developed countries (LDCs) received USD 35.7 million (10.8%) of IKEA Foundation’s gross disbursements in 2024. IKEA Foundation allocated the highest share (19.6%) of its bilateral development finance to lower middle-income countries in 2024, followed by LDCs (10.8%), noting that USD 217.2 million (65.6%) was unallocated by income group.
IKEA Foundation allocated USD 34.1 million of its development finance to land-locked developing countries in 2024.
Support to contexts with high and extreme fragility reached USD 66.4 million in 2024, representing 20.1% of IKEA Foundation’s bilateral development finance. Of this, contexts with extremely fragility received a sum of USD 300 thousand.
Learn more about the OECD States of Fragility platform.
In 2024, largest allocations (27.2% of bilateral contributions) by IKEA Foundation went to production sectors, with a strong focus on support to agriculture, forestry, fishing (USD 77 million). The second largest sector was economic infrastructure and services (USD 67 million), focusing on energy (USD 41.6 million). This was followed by humanitarian assistance (USD 53.9 million).
In the period 2023-2024, IKEA Foundation committed 0.5% of screened bilateral allocable development finance to gender equality and women’s empowerment, compared to 1.3% in 2021-2022 and a private philanthropic average of 33.2% in 2023-2024. This is equal to USD 1.7 million of screened bilateral allocable contributions in support of gender equality on average per year. IKEA Foundation screens all bilateral allocable contributions activities against the DAC gender equality policy marker (100% in 2023-2024).
Learn more about the DAC Recommendation on Gender Equality and the Empowerment of All Women and Girls in Development Co-operation and Humanitarian Assistance and the DAC Recommendation on Ending Sexual Exploitation in Development Co-operation.
In 2023-2024, IKEA Foundation committed 29.6% of its total bilateral allocable contributions (USD 93.3 million) in support of the environment, down from 74.7% in 2021-2022. The private philanthropic average was 12.4%. In addition:
27.8% of total bilateral allocable contributions (USD 87.6 million) focused on climate change overall (the private philanthropic average was 12.9%), down from 71.9% in 2021-2022. IKEA Foundation had a greater focus on adaptation (27.8%) than on mitigation (24%) in 2023-2024.
1.8% of screened bilateral allocable contributions (USD 5.7 million) focused on biodiversity overall (the private philanthropic average was 4.3%), down from 10.7% in 2021-2022.
Learn more about the DAC Declaration on Aligning Development Co-operation with the Goals of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.
In 2024, IKEA Foundation committed the largest shares of its contributions to SDG 2 (zero hunger), SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy) and SDG 10 (reduced inequalities) of the United Nations 2030 Agenda.
Access the full list of providers at this link: Development Co-operation Profiles.
Official website: https://ikeafoundation.org/.
The methodological notes provide further details on the definitions and statistical methodologies applied, including core and earmarked contributions to multilateral organisations, channels of delivery, bilateral unspecified/unallocated/allocable development finance, the gender equality policy marker, and the environment markers.
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← 1. This profile integrates 2023 and 2024 data reported to OECD, addressing the data gap from the previous year.
