The 2026 Aid Transparency Index is canceled. Here’s what it means.
4/3/2025: The CEO of Publish What You Fund has announced that the 2026 Aid Transparency Index will not be produced due to failure to secure funding. Since 2012, every two years, the Index has independently assessed and ranked the transparency of the world’s 50 largest aid agencies. Without it, an unchecked decline in aid transparency is likely.
Source: Devex
Launch of $750M African climate-resilient infrastructure fund
4/3/2025: The Africa Finance Corporation has closed the first round of financing for a new fund focused on climate-resilient infrastructure on the continent. Designed to accelerate climate adaptation, the fund has attracted significant support from the Green Climate Fund and the European Investment Bank.
Source: Devex
Almost 80,000 flee DR Congo amid fighting, sexual violence
4/3/2025: Armed clashes between government forces and Rwanda-backed M23 rebels in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo have created insecurity and horrific sexual violence, according to the UN Refugee Agency Close to 80,000 people have fled into neighbouring countries.
Source: UN News
Does Trump administration threaten survival of the UN?
3/3/2025: The UN is on the verge of fighting for its survival, as the Trump administration continues with its threats to drastically cut funding and pull out of several UN agencies. The US currently provides 22 percent of the UN budget.
Source: Inter Press Service
USAID funding freeze has disrupted independent journalism
3/3/2025: For 2025 USAID had allocated around $268 million to supporting “independent media and free flow of information.” The fate of that money is now uncertain. This funding often addresses key global and local issues, including the climate crisis, women’s rights, maternal and child health, or conflict — topics that media coverage tends to overlook quickly.
Source: Devex
The urgent need to rethink Africa’s health financing
3/3/2025: The Trump administration's abrupt gutting of USAID has aggressively shoved the African continent into a health financing crisis for which it wasn’t prepared. Last fiscal year, the US spent around $12 billion on global health funding — most of which was disbursed in sub-Saharan Africa.
Source: Devex
Guterres urges parties to find a way forward on next phase of Gaza ceasefire
1/3/2025: The six-week long ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has ended with further negotiations between the sides still pending. The Secretary-General has called for a permanent ceasefire and the release of all hostages. During the period of the truce, thousands of trucks carrying life-saving assistance entered Gaza, reaching nearly every person in the Strip.
Source: UN News
UN Biodiversity COP16 finalises agreement on biodiversity finance
28/2/2025: Greenpeace welcomes the agreement in UN negotiations to develop a roadmap to 2030 for sourcing $700 billion of biodiversity finance. The first step seeks commitment to $20 billion per year of public funding from 2025. The US is not a party to the UN Convention ib Biological Diversity.
Source: Greenpeace International
US shutdown of HIV/Aids funding ‘could lead to 500,000 deaths in South Africa’
28/2/2025: Sweeping notices of termination of funding have been received by organisations working with HIV and Aids across Africa, with dire predictions of a rise in deaths as a result. Projects funded by the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar), founded by George W Bush in 2003, appear to be particularly affected.
Source: The Guardian
Critical global surveys fall casualty to US foreign aid gutting
28/2/2025: USAID staff responsible for funding global Demographic and Health Surveys have received notices of termination. These long established critical data sets cover HIV/AIDS, malaria, nutrition, family planning, maternal and child health, gender, and fertility through over 400 surveys in more than 90 countries.
Source: Devex