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The New Philanthropy: Private Power in International Development Policy?
Abstract
This chapter examines the role and function of philanthropy in international development policy. Philanthropy has deep roots in development and its present influence is far from novel. Changes in the political economy of development finance, including growing private aid flows and continuing strain on the bilateral and multilateral aid systems, have increased its relative importance. Simultaneously, newly emerging foundations have financed novel institutional mechanisms for aid delivery in global health and transnational policy networks focussed on democratisation. These mechanisms have substantively shaped international development policy in key development sectors with important implications for the aid architecture by bringing in additional resources, ideas and approaches, while concurrently raising concerns, around the legitimacy and accountability of private actors.
... Applying FPSC to a vignette on foundations' role in the Alliance on the Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), we show how situated partnerships, normative justifications, and the role of critique speak to the dynamic organizational form of foundations and their role in the global policy agora. In doing so, we do not explore whether foundations sustain their influence on the policy environment; rather, we start from the position that foundations exert influence and explore how they do so (see Kneipp et al., 2023;McMeel Guthman, 2008;Moran & Stone, 2016), ultimately providing a new avenue to critically view foundations' role in the global policy agora with an eye to their organizational complexity and nuance. ...
... As point out, in any discussion of global policy and transnational administration, global civil society requires inclusion as philanthropic foundations have served as key players in recent years. Foundations have boomed in a global sense (Johnson, 2018): With private flows growing significantly since 2000 (Desai & Kharas, 2014), foundations have been bringing in "new instruments of aid", with a focus on technical development interventions within specific sectors, such as global health and agriculture (Moran, 2011;Moran & Stone, 2016). Though packaged as a "new" remit for globalized philanthropy, foundations have long participated in international development. ...
... Given their long-standing influence across global policy, scholarship has followed philanthropic foundations as transnational actors through the realm of international networks of knowledge and soft policy transfer (Moran, 2011;Moran & Stone, 2016;Stone, 2010;. This is because, within the growing PPPs and networks, private philanthropy increasingly occupies a seat at the policy-making table. ...
Foundations are one of the oldest organizational forms globally; their number and resources, as well as their socio-political and economic importance, have steadily continued to grow. Yet, foundations’ attributes, activities, and actual achievements remain underexplored and poorly understood. This is particularly noticeable in the context of global policy and transnational administration, an area where foundations tend to be subliminal players, acting as a widely unrecognized socio-political undercurrent. Addressing the resulting need for better and alternative conceptualizations of foundations, our paper uses French pragmatic sociology of critique (FPSC), a non-structuralist, post-Bourdesian, approach to sociology, to theorize philanthropic foundations within the policy agora. Through FPSC, we present foundations as a composite setup of activity, where critically reflexive actors bring normative ideologies and knowledge to policy, providing a new avenue for how scholarship can interpret and critique foundations and their influence.
... This connection between hegemony and philanthropy has been analysed from different perspectives (Bourdieu, 1994;Busman et al., 2013;Martens & Seitz, 2015;Moran & Stone, 2016;Morvaridi, 2012Morvaridi, , 2013, highlighting the concordance between donations by elites and the legitimization of their position in the social hierarchy, as well as the possibility of political control that is opened up, in an obsessive search for publicity and self-promotion that generally characterizes philanthrocapitalist actions, showing that financing decisions are influencedor even determinedby marketing and communication criteria (Lipovetsky, 1992). Thus, in the imaginary of neoliberal ID, the philanthrocapitalist becomes a pioneer, a leader of the moral order of the community, as an example of how liberal entrepreneurship contributes to the creation and configuration of the social system (Villadsen, 2007). ...
... (UN 2015b, 37) Thus, there is an evident privatizing tendency of FfD, in which philanthrocapitalism appears as a basic and legitimized instrument (Thorup, 2013). This entails a risk management by both partner and donor countries which determines an asymmetrical and vertical situation (Moran & Stone, 2016) due to their different starting points, and reinforces the donor/recipient dialectic. ...
... That is, subjectivity is politicized, for political problems are defined based on individual criteria; and vulnerability is simultaneously depoliticized, marketized and turned into a form of investment. Thus, a model of political and cultural hegemony is generated in which private economic elites control the NDA under the benevolent mask of philanthropy (Jensen, 2013;Moran & Stone, 2016;Morvaridi, 2012;Pizzigati, 2011). ...
Based on a critical analysis of the structurally neoliberal financing for development (FfD) system established by the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, this article contributes to the literature that views the 2030 Agenda as a new phase of the Neoliberal Development Agenda (NDA), which has been consolidated as hegemonic within the international development (ID) field in recent decades. Additionally, considering philanthrocapitalism as an ideological framework that proposes its own diagnoses and prognoses, we analyse various discourses of relevant Philanthrocapitalist Institutions and International Organizations to point how they legitimate themselves. This article shows how philanthrocapitalism has been constituted not only as a key element within the current model of FfD but also as a genuine neoliberal artefact designed to encapsulate the NDA apparatus, and fostered by the discourse of international agencies to contribute to the meta-objective of consolidating the neoliberal model as hegemonic in the ID arena.
... Nevertheless, state and private policy actors establish formal and informal networks that enable coordination, negotiation, and information exchange giving rise to new national or transnational networks (Moran and Stone, 2016;Viseu, 2022). Following Jessop (2016), by private policy actors we mean a wide range of actors, such as relevant international organisations, NGOs, the businesses, think tanks and, of course, private foundations. ...
This article focuses how philanthropy leverages knowledge brokering to promote the digitalisation of education and expand its influence on education governance. It presents an empirical study of a digital education programme launched in Portugal in 2020 by a private foundation. Through document analysis and an interview, the findings reveal that knowledge brokering enabled the foundation to bring together actors from different social worlds to conceive, legitimise and deliver the programme in public schools. Furthermore, knowledge brokering created new policy spaces that amplified the foundation’s role in educational governance, positioning Ed-Tech as a new topology for educational delivery.
... This turn towards social services challenges the role of governments. Studies have shown that the pan-national BMGF has undermined the government's role and facilitated the entry of large private sector companies into the domain of international development (Birn, 2014), its initiatives, such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS and the GAVI Alliance, replace the role of traditional international actors, such as the United Nations, and bring in powerful private actors into the negotiation table with governments in developing countries (Moran & Stone, 2016). ...
The growing digitalization of our society has led to a meteoric rise of large technology companies (Big Tech), which have amassed tremendous wealth and influence through their ownership of digital infrastructure and platforms. The recent launch of ChatGPT and the rapid popularization of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) act as a focusing event to further accelerate the concentration of power in the hands of the Big Tech. By using Kingdon's multiple streams framework, this article investigates how Big Tech utilize their technological monopoly and political influence to reshape the policy landscape and establish themselves as key actors in the policy process. It explores the implications of the rise of Big Tech for policy theory in two ways. First, it develops the Big Tech-centric technology stream, highlighting the differing motivations and activities from the traditional innovation-centric technology stream. Second, it underscores the universality of Big Tech exerting ubiquitous influence within and across streams, to primarily serve their self-interests rather than promote innovation. Our findings emphasize the need for a more critical exploration of policy role of Big Tech to ensure balanced and effective policy outcomes in the age of AI.
... Walker, 2020). Although tax regulations (Neumayr & Handy, 2019) and other public decisions (Wiepking, 2021;Wiepking et al., 2021) affect philanthropic flows (this is why we include them in our analysis), the final governance of the flows is private (Moran & Stone, 2016), and we can consider them sector-oriented on development needs. These cash flows are not easily identifiable since there could be undeclared private donations that are hard to identify without proper accountability tools. ...
The adoption of the 2030 Agenda has favoured a profound shift in the development aid system with the consolidation of new actors, goals and instruments. While the Sustainable Development Goals are a sound proposal to address the development problems in this new scenario, there is no agreement on many other topics, such as the most accurate instruments to finance the Agenda. Despite consensus on concerns about the effectiveness of official development assistance (ODA), no alternative proposals have yet been consolidated, and debate persists on how to finance the Agenda. However, the literature does not sufficiently address the fact that countries are pursuing divergent financing strategies that complicate the necessary consensus, especially after the negative impact of COVID-19 on international co-operation. To contribute to filling this gap in the literature, we focus on donor countries, scrutinising the variety of financing for development (FfD) strategies they support through their public policies, either promoting ODA flows, remittances, philanthropic donations or a policy coherence for development approach. Although there is still no international agreement on the role that these four instruments should play in financing the 2030 Agenda, data evidence shows how donor countries rely more on one or another of such instruments. Our hypotheses are that it is possible to find similar strategic patterns throughout different groups of countries and that there are significant differences in the FfD strategy implemented by each group. To test them, we propose a hierarchical cluster analysis to classify main donor countries according to the different FfD strategies they are actually carrying out. The analysis confirms our hypotheses, identifying four groups of countries according to their FfD strategy. Countries in each group share similar strategic approaches to financing the fight against poverty, while groups deeply diverge from one another. These results could explain the delay in addressing the unavoidable FfD debate in the 2030 Agenda, and they even question whether a common and shared FfD approach would be feasible if not appropriately addressed.
... The Ford Foundation was instrumental in financing the "Green Revolution" in agriculture development (Herdt 2012), and both the Ford and the MacArthur Foundations were involved in bolstering global civil society through their financing of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) beginning in the 1970s (Simmons 2004). More recently, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which as of December 2019 had $48.9 billion assets in trust, with $5.1 billion granted in 2019, and a total of $54.8 billion granted since its creation in 2000 (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation 2019), is the most important singular private actor in global health (McCoy et al. 2009), and it is thought to be gaining increasing influence in agricultural development (Moran and Stone 2016). ...
This article evaluates the international influence of Open Society Foundations (OSF) based on its goals and allocation of resources and takes into consideration the concerns raised by its critics. The study analyzes the objectives of this private philanthropic organization as well as its origins and the goals of its founder, George Soros. By assembling and using an original database, it also provides an overall analysis of all OSF grants assigned worldwide in the years 1999–2018 and quantitatively assesses their macro-level impact on democratic governance, freedom of expression, government accountability, and societies that promote justice and equity. Based on the available data, we find no evidence that OSF grants produce a positive impact at the macro-level on these goals nor that they effectively contribute to destabilize countries through protests and mass migrations as its critics claim. These results may have to do with lack of effectiveness or with motivations not matching the outcomes measured here. However, it is early to draw conclusions due to limited data.
... «New philanthropy», «philanthropy 3.0» (Ball & Olmedo, 2013) (McGoey, 2012) are now used to describe this ongoing process of reconfiguration of philanthropic foundations. Although philanthropy is still committed to social projects and innovative solutions, it is now also concerned with «clear and measurable impacts and results» of its investments (Ball & Olmedo, 2013, p. 34;Stone & Moran, 2016). ...
This article focuses on an emerging phenomenon in Portugal: the most visible and frequent presence of new collective actors in public policy processes. Often linked to philanthropic foundations, these actors call themselves to influence the educational agenda, and even the educational practices, and are highly dependent on expert knowledge. They are intermediary actors who perform cognitive and social operations that connect ideas, individuals and technical devices involved in policy processes. The article analyses the emergence of these intermediary actors and their attempts to influence and reshape the governance of education, through new political networks. Based on earlier empirical-based research inspired by network ethnography, and grounded on the political sociology of public action, the article presents a proposal for mapping these emerging intermediary actors, according to a) the spaces of collective action they use/create; b) their targets; c) their autonomy in the production of expert knowledge for policy. And depicts two trends related to their agency: the use of a more cognitive (rather than normative) regulation, more intensive and knowledge-based, converging to a new interactive and intuitive ways of knowledge dissemination; an increasingly intertwined regulation, involving several different social worlds, promoting and establishing new policy networks and the spread of the new philanthropy reasoning.
... Avoiding relegation to a bystander role will be key for LDC Governments (Moran and Stone, 2016). The consequences of this development are not unequivocally positive (Global Justice Now, 2016;Hay and Muller, 2014;Project Syndicate, 2019a). ...
... The Network is 'structured as both a non-profit organization (a 501c(3) under the US Internal Revenue Code) that makes grants much like a traditional foundation and a for-profit venture that invests in entities with a broad social mission' (Moran & Stone, 2016, p. 302). Thus, while it operates across a range of sectors in a similar manner to other foundations, it includes in its list of 'investees': investment firms, for-profit advocacy platforms (Moran & Stone, 2016), and financial technology or 'fintech ' start-ups (Aitken, 2017;Gabor & Brooks, 2017). ...
Global philanthropy, especially large US philanthropic foundations, has played an active but not unproblematic role in international development. In this article, we theorize the institutional strategies by which global philanthropy exercises its disproportionate influence. In particular, we offer bridges, interdigitates, platforms, and satellites as metaphors for theorizing the connections and disconnections that philanthropic foundations engineer. We draw on the interdisciplinary scholarship on philanthropy and development to identify three epochs: scientific development (1940s – 1970s), partnerships (1970s – 2000s), and philanthrocapitalism (2000s – present). In each of these, we outline how philanthropic foundations have used the above metaphorical institutional mechanisms—separately and increasingly in combination and more sophisticated ways—in making connections and disconnections across developmental geographies, histories, imaginaries, and institutions. Potentially generative, metaphors, we conclude, both offer ways to interpret the disproportionate power of philanthropy as well as challenge it by identifying philanthropy’s underlying assumptions, telos, and exclusions of development.
... The role of business in international development has been widely discussed, ranging from philanthropic approaches to critiques of neo-imperialism to neoliberal approaches (Harriss, 2014;Moran and Stone, 2016). IB has traditionally focused on the role of FDI and MNEs in development (Dunning, 1981;Dunning and Narula, 1996). ...
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the links between multinational enterprises (MNEs) and human rights abuses and review the development of international business (IB) and human rights initiatives. Arguing that the focus of the business and human rights debate has shifted from responsibility to rights, and subsequently to governance, it proposes a framework for analysing IB and human rights governance issues in the context of social value creation.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper develops a framework for analysing business and human rights governance with respect to the business and human rights field and four business and human rights subfields (labour, consumption, community and environment).
Findings
The analytical framework is organised around the relationships between human rights duty-bearers (companies) and human rights-holders (e.g., employees, consumers). It emphasises the role of actors and their interests, the relationships between actors, the objectives of these relationships and the role of governance mechanisms and structures, which, for a particular human rights subfield, define the IB and human rights governance system.
Originality/value
The analytical framework can be used by IB researchers, practitioners and public policymakers to describe, analyse, discuss and address business and human rights issues and challenges. It can be used for comparing and evaluating characteristics and properties of alternative institutional arrangements in the field of business and human rights. Furthermore, it can be used to support the design corporate non-market strategies as well as public policies.
... "New philanthropists" seek investment opportunities, create new initiatives, and demand predefined exit strategies (Edwards, 2016;John, 2006). Relying extensively on outcome-based evaluation and research, these philanthropists organize and fund advocacy and civic engagement efforts and are involved in the formulation of local and international social policy (Moran & Stone, 2016;Morvaridi, 2016). They favor collaborations with other philanthropists, governments, and civil society organizations (Lafrance & Latham, 2008;Ostrander, 2007). ...
This article explores the ways in which new philanthropic practices and grant-making patterns changed Jewish diaspora philanthropy. Based on an in-depth exploration of the philanthropy of the UJA-Federation of New York toward Israel, the article posits the development of a new Jewish diaspora philanthropy and outlines its characteristics and expressions. Findings suggest new missions, goals, activities, and philanthropic practices in Israel and point to a shift in the extent of donor engagement in decision-making. The article offers a broader discussion on the meanings and implications for the integration of new institutional environments, in the form of new philanthropic practices, to the organizational field of Jewish philanthropy, while highlighting the dilemmas generated in the process for the Federation and for recipient organizations.
... Philanthropic foundations and large international NGOs contract research or otherwise fund knowledge advancement through various financial instruments (scholarships, grants, gifts and bequests or commissioned research). For instance, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) is said to have dramatically altered the global health research agenda through its grant instruments and initiatives like GAVI-Vaccine Alliance (Moran and Stone 2016). In the UK, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation or Nuffield Foundation similarly privilege funding research which demonstrably influences society or government. ...
Science diplomacy is coming to the fore as a formidable dimension of interstate power relations. As the challenges of the world increasingly transcend borders, so too have researchers and innovators forged international coalitions to resolve global pathologies. In doing so, new channels of influence and opportunity have opened up for states alongside the ‘traditional’ modes of foreign diplomacy. Understanding how these channels influence global socio-economic outcomes is thereby crucial for scholars interested in the still-ambiguous structure and processes of global governance. This article advances understanding of the domains of science diplomacy by drawing attention to the ‘political intercostalities’ of state actors, scientific communities and other transnational actors within the new architectures of global governance. Here we trace the growing array of informal international associations alongside transgovernmental policy networks and ‘global public-policy partnerships’ that deal with highly specialised and technical matters of international policy and how they are drawn into science diplomacy. This article thus presents a research agenda for a particular mode of ‘impact’ in politics and international studies.
Bloomberg Philanthropies—the philanthropic organization of multibillionaire, CEO and former mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg—has become a palpably influential node in global networks of urban policy knowledge generation and mobility. This article examines the formative conditions, scope and operations of Bloomberg's philanthropically funded complex of urban policy influence. It begins by outlining Bloomberg Philanthropies' ecosystem of urban initiatives, which offer funding, technical support and entry into communities of practice for city government partners. It then traces the styling of Bloomberg's New York City mayoralty into a symbol‐turned‐model of effective administration and its alignment with Bloomberg Philanthropies' efforts to address the ‘crisis of capacity’ in city government. From there, the article analyses the formation of partnerships between Bloomberg Philanthropies and city governments. We show how Bloomberg Philanthropies occupies a powerful meta‐governmental position: as a city‐administration‐at‐large, it orchestrates a global‐institutional field that promotes and resources the implementation of technocratic, superficially pre‐political ‘best process’. But its relevance depends on harmonizing its agenda with the current desires and practical possibilities of city government. We argue that these asymmetric but interdependent relationships are important for understanding Bloomberg's global mayoralty and the general practice of philanthropic meta‐governance it exemplifies.
One of the top infectious disease killers of children under the age of five globally is pneumonia, with most mortality occurring in low and middle-income countries. Vaccines are considered to be important for public health and an effective tool to reduce preventable deaths, for example, pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCVs) have helped reduce severe childhood pneumonia and other pneumococcal diseases. However, the market for and the development of vaccines targeting diseases in developing countries has been disproportionately slow. This chapter will evaluate the effectiveness of innovative health financing sources in particular, advance market commitments, as viable funding mechanisms for global health initiatives such as vaccine and immunization programs through a case study of the Pneumococcal Vaccine Advance Market Commitment Program and more specifically, the development of the 10-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine.
Advocates of philanthropy often frame its worth through efficacy. Critical voices counter such narratives by exposing the social construction of these ideas by hegemonic forces. But they do not interrogate concepts of efficacy through close attention to the process of doing philanthropy. To address this gap, this article engages with philanthropy through the anthropology of techniques. Based on three months of participant observation among high‐net‐worth donors and organizations that work with them in the City of London, I argue that attention to expedience (here referring to maximizing funding rather than effects) invigorates critical reflection on “effective philanthropy.” Furthermore, I suggest that my ethnographically informed distinction between expedience and efficacy provides me with a new way to engage with philanthropists: demonstrating the relevance of anthropological theory to their practices and concerns rather than simply criticizing them.
Introduction
Advocacy is vital for advancing tobacco control and there has been considerable investment in this area. While much is known about tobacco industry interference (TII), there is little research on advocates’ efforts in countering TII and what they need to succeed. We sought to examine this and focused on low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) where adoption and implementation of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) tend to remain slower and weaker.
Method
We interviewed 22 advocates from eight LMICs with recent progress in a tobacco control policy. We explored participants’ experiences in countering TII, including the activities they undertake, challenges they encounter and how their efforts could be enhanced. We used Qualitative Description to analyse transcripts and validated findings through participant feedback.
Results
We identified four main areas of countering activities: (1) generating and compiling data and evidence, (2) accessing policymakers and restricting industry access, (3) working with media and (4) engaging in a national coalition. Each area was linked to challenges, including (1) lack of data, (2) no/weak implementation of FCTC Article 5.3, (3) industry ties with media professionals and (4) advocates’ limited capacity. To address these challenges, participants suggested initiatives, including access to country-specific data, building advocates’ skills in compiling and using such data in research and monitoring, and in coalition development; others aiming at training journalists to question and investigate TII; and finally, diverse interventions intended to advance a whole-of-government approach to tobacco control. Structural changes to tobacco control funding and coordination were suggested to facilitate the proposed measures.
Conclusion
This research highlights that following years of investment in tobacco control in LMICs, there is growing confidence in addressing TII. We identify straightforward initiatives that could strengthen such efforts. This research also underscores that more structural changes to enhance tobacco control capacity building should be considered.
This article offers an international development perspective on project management. A brief history of the ambitious and controversial role that projects have played over seven decades of development assistance in diverse operational contexts evokes many of the themes vividly articulated by the flourishing contemporary project management literature. They highlight the limitations of conventional project management practices dominated by Management by Objectives principles. Development experience also stresses the promise of adaptable approaches to project design and management in complex and turbulent operating environments and it suggests that projects conceived as experiments can contribute to sound decision making at the higher plane of strategy formulation and policy-making. Beyond confirming the soundness and utility of contemporary project management scholarship, the article puts forward six recommendations grounded in development experience that may be worth consideration by the nascent ‘New Project Management’ movement.
The literature on the private sector’s involvement in development points to the
increasing linkages between development cooperation actors and the private sector.
However, no study has systematically examined how the roles of the private sector
differ across development cooperation actors. As such, our picture of private sector
involvement in development is incomplete.
This research report makes a unique contribution to the literature by mapping how
development cooperation actors across the international aid architecture seek to
engage the private sector for development. It builds on the existing literature with new
empirical research based on a detailed, systematic examination of more than 100
development cooperation actors’ policies for engaging the private sector. The research,
conducted between February and April 2013, moves beyond case studies and success
stories on private sector engagements for development. It presents aggregated findings
and draws important policy implications and recommendations from them. This report
serves as a useful source of information for policy-makers concerned with gaining a
better understanding of how development cooperation actors seek to engage the private
sector, on what terms, and where policy gaps remain.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) is the world's wealthiest philanthropic organisation and a major player in global health governance. While its emergence may be dramatic, BMGF's role in global health mirrors the experience of the Rockefeller Foundation's International Health Division nearly 100 years earlier. Both organisations provoked fear and consternation, but their supporters argued that both offered innovative techniques and filled niches governments could not or would not address. This article examines the parallels in arguments for and against the global health activities between the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. It also calls into question larger questions about the role of private actors in global governance and whether their activities in recent years are really all that unprecedented.
Over the past decade a new form of philanthropy has emerged, termed ‘philanthrocapitalism’. Champions of philanthrocapitalism suggest that private giving can fill the void left by diminished government spending on social and development programmes. Critics suggest that philanthropy is no substitute for strong governmental support for social welfare. Both arguments perpetuate a dichotomy between the public and the private, implying that philanthrocapitalism operates in a vacuum largely divorced from governmental interventions. In this article I challenge that assumption, exploring how new philanthropic initiatives have compelled increased financial support from governments toward the private sector. Drawing on three cases – advanced market commitments (amcs) in drug development; impact investing; and direct philanthropic and governmental grants to corporate entities – I illustrate the ways that governments remain one of the most powerful – if not the most powerful – philanthropic actors in the philanthrocapitalist turn.
This article examines the role and influence of three American foundations – Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Ford – in developing international knowledge networks that significantly impacted upon the Third World, helping to consolidate US hegemony after 1945, fostering pro-US values, methods and research institutions. The international networks were modelled on prior domestic initiatives resulting in the effective intellectual hegemony of ‘liberal internationalism’, of empirical scientific research methods, and of policy-oriented studies. Such domestic hegemony constructed a key basis of America’s rise to globalism, which after 1945 required a continuing and enhanced foundation role, especially with the onset of the Cold War. The article, which examines the role of the US foundations in relation to intellectual hegemony construction in Latin America, Indonesia, and Africa, concludes that the evidence is best explained by Gramscian theory, and calls for further empirical research in this vital area.
There has been increasing interest on the role of private foundations in education finance and delivery. We argue that this is due to a macro-policy context of stagnating levels of official development assistance for education and an uncritical acceptance of a logic of neutrality and the efficiency and effectiveness of of partnerships and philanthropy. This paper reports on the results of a literature review on private foundations in education and development. It found significant contestation against the claims of neutrality, efficiency, effectiveness. It also identifies salient methodological and substantive issues for the development of a research agenda on the issue.
The global food crisis and philanthropy capitalism have provided foundations and multilateral institutions an opportunity to relaunch the Green Revolution in Africa. While the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) maintains the Green Revolution focus on genetic improvement, new technological variations have been added, including a focus on genetic engineering. Eric Holt-Giménez argues that AGRA reflects a structural shift from state-led development strategies to market-led approaches for the Green Revolution. Although AGRA may revive the Green Revolution, a market-led approach based on genetic engineering is unlikely to solve the problem of hunger in Africa. Informed public debate is needed to consider other proven African alternatives that may hold more promise for rebuilding African agriculture. Development (2008) 51, 464–471. doi:10.1057/dev.2008.49
Theories of US hegemony commonly ignore the role of American philanthropy in the contemporary transformations of world society and the globalization of capitalism. In this essay, I suggest that the philanthropic foundation, and with it the institution of philanthropy, is being invigorated by the expansion of its domestic role to foreign activities and to globally framed activities within the USA. I propose that US philanthropy exports American understandings of democracy and simultaneously organizes global reflexivity through citizenship education for the US populace. I offer a preliminary theoretical interpretation of the empirical patterns of international grant-making activities by US foundations, considering John W. Meyer's concept of 'instrumental culture' and some arguments made by Foucauldian 'governmentality' scholars. I emphasize the need to conceptualize the cultural-symbolic and organizational dimensions of hegemony and suggest further sociological analysis of philanthropic activities as integral to current politically and economically led transformations of societies around the globe.
This chapter broadly explores the influence of private foundations in the governance of global health. Such foundations, including the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, have historically played an important role in infectious disease control, providing seed finance to develop vaccines (e.g. yellow fever) and in direct interventions to eradicate intestinal parasites (e.g. hookworm). More recently, such actors have utilised their material resources to facilitate and broker strategic coalitions between pharmaceutical companies, civil society groups, international organisations, and states in ‘innovative’ policy arrangements variously known in the literature as public–private, multi-sectoral, and multi-stakeholder partnerships. Partnerships such as the GAVI Alliance, the Institute for OneWorld Health, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (hereinafter the Global Fund), to name but a few high-profile cases, have all been identified as appropriate policy responses to complex and seemingly intractable global health problems.
This chapter unpacks the “partnership moment,” charting the rise of global health partnerships (GHPs) within the context of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as the master framework of global development policy. The chapter provides commentary on their performance to date and briefly reviews proposals – focused on enhancing state capacity and rights-based approaches – that have been forwarded as alternatives paths toward a more genuine “partnership for development.” GHPs are both a cause and a manifestation of the changes that have occurred in global health. Their proliferation at this particular juncture in the history of public health is explained by five interrelated contextual factors. Four broad partnership categories, developed by the United Kingdom's Department for International Development are: Research and development (R&D) GHPs, Technical assistance/service support GHPs, Advocacy GHPs and Financing GHPs.
As long as large segments of humanity are suffering chronic poverty and dying from treatable diseases, organized giving can save or enhance millions of lives. With the law providing little guidance, ethics has a crucial role to play in ensuring that the philanthropic practices of individuals, foundations, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), governments, and international agencies are morally sound and effective. This book brings together an international group of distinguished philosophers, social scientists, lawyers, and practitioners to identify and address the most urgent moral questions arising today in the practice of philanthropy. The topics discussed include the psychology of giving, the reasons for and against a duty to give, the accountability of NGOs and foundations, the questionable marketing practices of some NGOs, the moral priorities that should inform NGO decisions about how to target and design their projects, the good and bad effects of aid, and the charitable tax deduction along with the water's edge policy now limiting its reach. This groundbreaking volume can help bring our practice of charity closer to meeting the vital needs of the millions worldwide who depend on voluntary contributions for their very lives.
This book explores the influence of private United States (US) philanthropic foundations in the governance of global problems. Through a close scrutiny of four high profile case studies of public-private collaboration, the work addresses the vacuum present in global governance scholarship regarding the influence of foundations, arguing the influence of these actors extends beyond the basic material, and into the more subtle and complex ideational sphere of policy and governance.
This article argues that because much of the scholarship examining the influence of private foundations in global health governance is either neo-Gramscian or reflexively critical in orientation, undue attention has been paid to foundations' origins, affiliations and perceived biases towards bringing technological solutions to bear on problems with deep socio-political determinants, obscuring their chief functions as global governors while downplaying their agency. Such concerns are by no means new as private philanthropic influence in the governance of global health is not a new phenomenon. Drawing on examples from the Ford, Rockefeller and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations' efforts to strengthen public health across the Global South, we argue that for over a century private foundations have been instrumental in the governance of collective action problems for two important reasons. Firstly, their stark illumination of state and market failures disproportionately affecting the world's marginalised and the potential of science-enabled innovation to address longstanding challenges has repeatedly generated the requisite political will to address, however imperfectly, global disparities. Secondly, foundations have ensured that functional governance mechanisms exist to provide public goods to the poor when changes to the structural fabric of the world order constrain the ability of other institutions mandated to perform this function.
Private Actors in Global Health Governance O.D.Williams & S.Rushton PART I: GLOBAL HEALTH PARTNERSHIPS A Critical Appraisal of Global Health Partnerships S.Bartsch The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria: Expertise, Accountability and the Depoliticisation of Global Health Governance A.Barnes & G.Wallace Brown The Alignment Dialogue: GAVI and its Engagement with National Governments in Health Systems Strengthening P.S.Hill Evaluating Product Development Partnerships: Beyond quantitative metrics R.Hanlin PART II: PHILANTHROPIC FOUNDATIONS Private Foundations and Global Health Partnerships: Philanthropists and 'Partnership Brokerage' M.Moran Global Health and the Gates Foundation - In Perspective D.McCoy & L.McGoey The Clinton Foundation and Global Health Governance J.Youde Private Foundations as Agents of Development in Global Health: What Kind of Impact Do They Have and How To Assess It? C.Ulbert & B.Hamm PART III: CROSS-CUTTING THEMES Co-opting the Global Health Agenda: The Problematic Role of Partnerships and Foundations T.Faubion, S.Paige & A.L.Pearson The Limits of Control: The Accountability of Foundations and Partnerships in Global Health E.Hesselmann Coda: The End of One Era and the Start of Another: Partnerships, Foundations and the Shifting Political Economy of Global Health O.D.Williams & S.Rushton
Philanthropic practices allow the dominant classes to generate knowledge about society and regulatory prescriptions, in particular by promoting the development of the social sciences. The 19th century industrialists had often invested their resources in the definition and treatment of relevant social issues, in order to institutionalize the new form of capitalism they represented. In the late 20th century, the new transnationalized social strata representing the hegemony of financial capital, whose power depends on their capacity to perpetuate the new socioeconomic order, used similar strategies. Philanthropy offers a privileged strategy for generating new forms of “policy knowledge” convergent with the interests of their promoters. Focusing on the Central European University founded by the financier George Soros, the paper argues that, far from seeking to curb the excesses of economic globalization, such efforts are actually institutionalizing it by laying the foundations of its own regulatory order.
â–º Rockefeller and Ford Foundations funded developing country agriculture for 50 years. â–º The Gates Foundation now spends 10times more annually on global agriculture. â–º Agriculture is characterized by exceedingly large temporal and spatial variability. â–º Transfer of technology, policy and institutions has limited value; local capacity is required.
Foreign aid is now a $100bn business and is expanding more rapidly today than it has for a generation. But does it work? Indeed, is it needed at all? Other attempts to answer these important questions have been dominated by a focus on the impact of official aid provided by governments. But today possibly as much as 30 percent of aid is provided by Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), and over 10 percent is provided as emergency assistance. In this first-ever attempt to provide an overall assessment of aid, Roger Riddell presents a rigorous but highly readable account of aid, warts and all. Does Foreign Aid Really Work? sets out the evidence and exposes the instances where aid has failed and explains why. The book also examines the way that politics distorts aid, and disentangles the moral and ethical assumptions that lie behind the belief that aid does good. The book concludes by detailing the practical ways that aid needs to change if it is to be the effective force for good that its providers claim it is.
Global Health Partnerships (GHPs) have contributed significantly to improved global health outcomes as well as the manner in which global health is governed. Yet in a context of an increasingly complex global health landscape, resource scarcity and a shift from disease-specific to systems strengthening approaches, it is important to continually enhance and apply our understanding of how to improve GHP performance. The authors reviewed and synthesised findings from eight independent evaluations of GHPs as well as research projects conducted by the authors over the past several years, the most recent of which involved semi-structured discussions with 20 ‘partnership pioneers’. This paper presents the major drivers of the GHP trend, briefly reviews the significant contributions of GHPs to global health and sets out common findings from evaluations of these global health governance instruments. The paper answers the question of how to improve GHP performance with reference to a series of lessons emerging from the past ten years of experience. These lessons cover the following areas:
These and other critical reflections inform the ‘what’s next’ agenda for GHP development.
The need for timely and reliable information about global health resource flows to low-income and middle-income countries is widely recognised. We aimed to provide a comprehensive assessment of development assistance for health (DAH) from 1990 to 2007.
We defined DAH as all flows for health from public and private institutions whose primary purpose is to provide development assistance to low-income and middle-income countries. We used several data sources to measure the yearly volume of DAH in 2007 US5.6 billion in 1990 to 13.8 [corrected] billion DAH in 2007 for which project-level information was available, 0.6 [corrected] billion for tuberculosis, 0.9 billion for health-sector support. Total DAH received by low-income and middle-income countries was positively correlated with burden of disease, whereas per head DAH was negatively correlated with per head gross domestic product.
This study documents the substantial rise of resources for global health in recent years. Although the rise in DAH has resulted in increased funds for HIV/AIDS, other areas of global health have also expanded. The influx of funds has been accompanied by major changes in the institutional landscape of global health, with global health initiatives such as the Global Fund and GAVI having a central role in mobilising and channelling global health funds.
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is a major contributor to global health; its influence on international health policy and the design of global health programmes and initiatives is profound. Although the foundation's contribution to global health generally receives acclaim, fairly little is known about its grant-making programme. We undertook an analysis of 1094 global health grants awarded between January, 1998, and December, 2007. We found that the total value of these grants was US5.82 billion (65%) was shared by only 20 organisations. Nevertheless, a wide range of global health organisations, such as WHO, the GAVI Alliance, the World Bank, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, prominent universities, and non-governmental organisations received grants. 3.27 billion) of funding was allocated to research and development (mainly for vaccines and microbicides), or to basic science research. The findings of this report raise several questions about the foundation's global health grant-making programme, which needs further research and assessment.
The 2013 index of global philanthropy and remittances
- Global Center
- Prosperity
Global institutional philanthropy: A preliminary status report. Boston: World-wide Initiatives for Grantmaker Support and The Philanthropic Initiative
- P Johnson
Philanthrocapitalism: How the rich can save the world
- M L Bishop
- M Green
Investing for social gain: Reflections on two decades of program-related investments
- Ford Foundation
International grantmaking update: A snapshot of US foundation trends
- Foundation Center
The importance of foundations in an open society
- K Prewitt
Philanthropy and official development assistance: A clash of civilisations? netFWD articles, series
- M Green
Knowledge actors and transnational governance: The Public-Private Policy Nexus in the Global Agora
- D Stone
Philanthropic foundations and their role in international development assistance
- O Sulla