Achieving sustainable development requires mobilising financing sources beyond traditional official development assistance (ODA) and leveraging innovative partnerships. As global challenges intensify in low- and middle-income countries – climate emergencies, geopolitical instability, mounting debt distress – and ODA budgets contracting – with a decline of 9-18% in 2025 –, identifying and leveraging all available resources for development is a global priority.
The Fourth Financing for Development Conference (FfD4) in Seville acknowledged this imperative, framing the moment as an opportunity to reshape the development finance architecture for the 21st century. The Sevilla Compromise calls for multilateral development banks to create catalytic capital pools with contributions from foundations and philanthropies.
Against this backdrop, the third edition of the Private Philanthropy for Development report illustrates the OECD’s commitment to supporting evidence-based policy making, and to shaping a more inclusive development finance system. By mapping philanthropic flows, practices, and partnerships with unprecedented scope, it highlights the specificities and complementarities of private philanthropy for development and offers practical pathways for deeper collaboration between foundations and other development finance providers. With close to 100 co-financed projects implemented alongside over 300 partners mapped for this report, spanning the full range of development actors, the conditions are in place for philanthropy to step up not only as a funder but as a strategic partner – bringing public and private actors together to help enable sustainable investment at scale.
With USD 68 billion provided between 2020 and 2023, philanthropy cannot match the scale of ODA. However, it brings distinctive capabilities – flexibility, risk tolerance, and catalytic potential – alongside complementary funding for cross-cutting priorities across geographies and sectors. The robust evidence in this report is critical to leveraging its contributions to the financing of sustainable development.
The report confirms trends already highlighted in the two previous editions and identifies new emerging patterns: private philanthropy for development continues to support health above all other sectors, focuses mainly on middle-income countries while remaining cautious about less stable and low-income contexts, and remains heavily concentrated – with the top ten largest international foundations providing three-quarters of total cross-border financing. Africa is the top recipient region of cross-border flows, reaching USD 17.6 billion over 2020-2023, with a steady yearly increase over the period. Philanthropic flows and ODA also demonstrated complementary roles in vulnerable and conflict-related settings over 2020-2023, notably in Ukraine after Russia’s full-scale invasion.
This edition also brings into focus domestic philanthropy within middle-income countries – where and how it is mobilised, which priorities it supports, and how it complements international philanthropic flows. In a context of ODA cuts, understanding domestic contributions is critical, as these resources play a key role in sustaining basic services such as health, education, and infectious disease control, while reducing dependency on external aid.
Finally, the report provides the foundational data needed to understand philanthropy's role in sustainable development – not only mapping funding flows between 2020 and 2023 but also examining the institutional and learning practices, governance models, and collaborative strategies that determine how effectively these resources deliver on development priorities.
We believe this report offers unique practical value for policymakers, ODA providers, private sector investors, and private foundations alike. It delivers a comprehensive and factual overview of opportunities for collaboration within the sector, while highlighting potential pathways towards a more integrated international development ecosystem beyond 2030.
Ragnheiður Elín ÁRNADÓTTIR
Director
OECD Development Centre