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https://apnews.com/article/div-fund-usaid-foreign-aid-3d4b69f8a1c53fae17a39fd9af1f4f00>
"WASHINGTON (
AP) — A division of the U.S. Agency for International
Development eliminated by Trump administration cuts last year was reborn
Thursday as an independent nonprofit, allowing its international work to
continue in a new form.
This reincarnation of USAID’s Development Innovation Ventures as the nonprofit
DIV Fund is thanks to $48 million raised from two private donors. It is a rare
instance of continuation after the Trump administration froze all foreign
funding last year and unleashed Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency
to tear down the agency that delivered U.S. foreign aid for 60 years.
Out of that destruction, which cost tens of thousands of jobs and caused people
around the world to die, many private efforts were made to preserve decades of
data and knowledge housed at USAID, help recipients keep vital programs running
and reimagine how international development might work.
But few of those efforts have managed to attract the kind of philanthropic
funding that the DIV Fund has. Funders, previous grantees and DIV Fund staff
gathered in the glass-walled penthouse of a Washington think tank as the sun
set Thursday to mark the new chapter. The mood was resolved and optimistic,
having found a way to continue where many efforts in international development
have been derailed.
“The loss of US government support is a huge blow,” said Michael Kremer, the
DIV Fund’s scientific director and a Nobel prize winning economist. “It’s
wonderful that private funders have stepped up to help try to fill part of that
gap but it’s only filling part of the gap.”
Some of the leaders of the new nonprofit were also involved in directing $110
million from private philanthropy in the past year to projects that lost
funding from USAID. Now, the DIV Fund aims to grant out $25 million annually,
which represents a little more than half of DIV’s budget at USAID."
Via Esther Schindler.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
