News and blogs

GIF’s investment mandate is focused on finding and funding innovative ventures and solutions that have high potential to be impactful on the lives of the poor, scalable to reach millions and cost effective. Applying these criteria has meant that GIF’s portfolio has been largely comprised of investments amenable to quantifying impacts generated by innovations (e.g. […]

I was fortunate enough to spend time this week attending the Centre for Global Development’s annual Development Leaders’ Conference in Paris. It is always a great forum for discussing the challenges and opportunities facing the wider development community, and I was pleased to join both Juliette Seban, Executive Director of Fonds d’Innovation pour le Développement, […]

Many families around the world will be preparing for the start of the new school year this week. Education is considered a universal human right, and our right to access it will be taken for granted by many. However, there are still huge barriers to accessing education for people around the world, and there are […]

GIF grantee GiveDirectly today announced the appointment of Rory Stewart, former Secretary of State for International Development, as its President. Mr Stewart will succeed Michael Faye, who has led the non-profit as President and Co-Founder since 2009. Mr Faye will move to the role of Executive Chair of GiveDirectly’s Board, while remaining in his ongoing […]

Increasing agency is core to all innovations the Global Innovation Fund backs – innovations that support people of all genders to make empowered and informed decisions and to have control over their own voices, bodies, income, and assets. We use ‘agency’ in a broad sense – closely akin to empowerment. The domains of agency for […]

The UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, has just published an Endline Report on GiveDirectly, a charity making unrestricted cash transfers via a mobile money payments platform to some of the world’s poorest people. The report contains the results from the first-ever study of cash aid in a refugee setting – the Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement in Uganda […]

Today, on International Youth Day, the United Nations recognises efforts of the world’s youth, aged between 15 and 24 years old, in enhancing global society. It’s an opportunity to celebrate the contribution that young people make in education, employment, conflict resolution and social justice. This year’s theme, Intergenerational Solidarity: Creating a World for All Ages, […]