Development Co‑operation Profiles: Wellcome Trust
Table of contents
The Wellcome Trust is a global English charitable foundation established in 1936 after the death of Sir Henry Wellcome, a pharmaceutical entrepreneur.
Since its formation, the Wellcome Trust has supported breakthroughs in scientific discoveries and advocated for policies to improve health for everyone. Today, the Wellcome Trust supports science to solve the urgent health challenges facing everyone. It has four programmes of work: one for discovery research, and three to find solutions for the challenges of mental health, climate and health, and infectious diseases.
The Wellcome Trust data were processed by the OECD DAC Secretariat. The Wellcome Trust agrees to the publication of these data in the OECD/CRS database, although it is not in a position to validate their alignment with the OECD CRS taxonomy.
This profile presents verified data on development assistance allocations. See the Development Co-operation Profiles.
Wellcome Trust provided USD 563.3 million for development in 2024 through its cross-border funding. Compared to 2023, this amount represents a decrease of 40.4% in real terms, while noting that 2023 was exceptionally high driven by two grants. Grants represented 100% of Wellcome Trust’s gross disbursements.
Wellcome Trust provided all of its development finance bilaterally in 2024, while 3.3% was channelled through multilateral organisations (earmarked contributions).
In 2024, Wellcome Trust channelled its bilateral development finance mostly through universities, research institutes or think tanks (USD 287.1 million), public private partnerships (PPPs) and private sector (USD 109.3 million) and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) (USD 88.5 million).
In 2024, Wellcome Trust provided USD 18.5 million to the multilateral system. All of this was non-core contributions earmarked for a specific country, region, theme or purpose. 12% of total development finance was channelled through United Nations (UN) organisations.
The UN system received USD 2.3 million from Wellcome Trust in 2024. The most significant UN recipient was the World Health Organisation (WHO) (USD 2.3 million).
In 2024, civil society organisations (CSOs) received USD 88.5 million of Wellcome Trust’s gross bilateral finance, of which 17.8% was directed to developing country-based CSOs. Overall, 15.7% was earmarked to specific projects or programmes, while none of the contributions were allocated to CSOs as core support. From 2023 to 2024, the combined core and earmarked contributions for CSOs increased as a share of bilateral philanthropic development finance, from 4.3% to 15.7%.
Learn more about the DAC Recommendation on Enabling Civil Society in Development Co-operation and Humanitarian Aid.
In 2024, Wellcome Trust’s development finance was primarily focused on Asia (excluding the Middle East) and Africa. USD 200.3 million was allocated to Asia (excluding the Middle East) and USD 156.1 million to Africa, accounting respectively for 35.6% and 27.7% of gross bilateral development finance. A sum of USD 174.4 million (31%) was unallocated by region, mainly including multi-regional programmes and research grants.
In 2024, 49.6% of gross development finance went to the top 10 recipients, most notably India (17.6%), Thailand (11.5%), and South Africa (7.7%).
Least developed countries (LDCs) received USD 47.2 million (8.4%) of Wellcome Trust’s gross disbursements in 2024. Wellcome Trust allocated the highest share (27.8%) of its bilateral development finance to lower middle-income countries in 2024, followed by upper middle-income countries (25.1%), noting that USD 218.3 million (38.8%) was unallocated by income group.
Wellcome Trust allocated USD 23.6 million of its development finance to land-locked developing countries in 2024, and USD 3.9 million to small island developing states (SIDS) in 2024. The main SIDS recipients are Samoa, Guinea-Bissau and Cabo Verde.
Support to contexts with high and extreme fragility reached USD 87.3 million in 2024, representing 15.5% of Wellcome Trust’s bilateral development finance. Of this, contexts with extremely fragility received a sum of USD 11.4 million.
Learn more about the OECD States of Fragility platform.
In 2024, largest allocations (74.3% of bilateral contributions) by Wellcome Trust went to social infrastructure and services, with a strong focus on support to health and population (USD 418.2 million). The second largest sector was multi-sector (USD 128.2 million). This was followed by economic infrastructure and services (USD 9.5 million).
In 2024, Wellcome Trust committed the largest shares of its contributions to SDG 3 (good health and well-being), SDG 4 (quality education) and SDG 9 (industry, innovation, and infrastructure) of the United Nations 2030 Agenda. Support for SDG 5 (gender equality) amounted to USD 3 million. Contributions to SDG 13 (climate action) totalled USD 126.5 million.
Access the full list of providers at this link: Development Co-operation Profiles.
Official website: https://wellcome.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.
This work is published under the responsibility of the Secretary-General of the OECD. The opinions expressed and arguments employed herein do not necessarily reflect the official views of the Member countries of the OECD.
This document, as well as any data and map included herein, are without prejudice to the status of or sovereignty over any territory, to the delimitation of international frontiers and boundaries and to the name of any territory, city or area.
© OECD 2026
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
This work is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence. By using this work, you accept to be bound by the terms of this licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Attribution – you must cite the work.
Translations – you must cite the original work, identify changes to the original and add the following text: In the event of any discrepancy between the original work and the translation, only the text of original work should be considered valid.
Adaptations – you must cite the original work and add the following text: This is an adaptation of an original work by the OECD. The opinions expressed and arguments employed in this adaptation should not be reported as representing the official views of the OECD or of its Member countries.
Third-party material – the licence does not apply to third-party material in the work. If using such material, you are responsible for obtaining permission from the third party and for any claims of infringement.
You must not use the OECD logo, visual identity or cover image without express permission or suggest the OECD endorses your use of the work.
Any dispute arising under this licence shall be settled by arbitration in accordance with the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) Arbitration Rules 2012. The seat of arbitration shall be Paris (France). The number of arbitrators shall be one.
