Billionaires can’t fill the $50 billion foreign-aid gap. The World Bank wants to make their money go further
Source: Fortune ·
Rich countries are cutting aid at a record pace. The World Bank’s new Philanthropy Hub asks foundations and family offices to route their money through its lending machine, and it’s promising them leverage.
From the source
Bill Gates plans to give away roughly $200 billion before his foundation closes in 2045. Even that won’t cover what rich governments just cut. Official development assistance from the OECD’s donor countries fell by about $50 billion in 2025, a 23.1% drop that is the steepest on record. The Gates Foundation, the world’s largest private philanthropy, is spending about $9 billion a year. The OECD has estimated that U.S. foundations together gave roughly $6 billion a year for development in the late 2010s. That figure is outdated, but it still shows the size of the gap. The World Bank Group is betting it can help close some of that gap by changing how philanthropic money is used. On Oct. 12, at the inaugural World Bank Group Philanthropy Forum during the IMF–World Bank Group Annual Meetings in Bangkok, the lender launched its Philanthropy Hub. The platform gives foundations, family offices, and wealthy donors a single entry point to the bank, and a way to plug their grants into its far…