MONTHLY NEWSLETTER: OCTOBER, 2025 by TAI Collaborative

Dear colleagues,

Welcome to the first issue of the Future of Development Monthly Newsletter! Each month, we’ll highlight emerging trends and opportunities through the Four Shifts Framework — from rethinking global cooperation and finance, to strengthening Global Majority agency, and reimagining philanthropy’s role in a fast-changing space (see framework below).

A heartfelt thank you to everyone who joined our launch event at UNGA and the first Future of Development Roundtable foundation staff meeting — and a warm hello to those who couldn’t be with us. Your energy, ideas, and openness have already set the tone for what our Roundtable can become: a trusted clearinghouse and collaborative hub for learning and action across philanthropic networks.

Let’s keep building on that momentum — learning from one another, spotting synergies, and turning insights into practical, catalytic action. If you would like to know more about the Roundtable, please reach out to roundtablesecretariat@taicollaborative.org

Warmly,
Nicole, Mariam & Michael

Roundtable Next Steps

Stay tuned for new resources coming soon. These include a collation of “future of develoment” initiatives, searchable by region and shift, a database of news and research and analysis that digs into specific opportunity areas. Additionally, we are starting calls to test interest to go deeper. Join us for the first of our Shift Exploration calls to explore Shift 1: Building a New Era of International Cooperation scheduled for November 18 at 8 AM PT / 11 AM ET / 4 PM GMT / 5 PM CET.

Help us make the Roundtable more inclusive, connected, and effective by taking a few minutes to fill out this form. Specifically, we'd like your suggestions for funders or funder networks who should be part of this conversation, especially those based in Global Majority regions. You can indicate your interest in joining the Roundtable Steering Committee.

What’s Emerging Across the Field: Insights on the Four Shifts

Shift 1: Building a New Era of Development Cooperation

As Western aid budgets shrink and donors increasingly align assistance with national interests, this rich collection of essays explores what it means for the future of development and humanitarian cooperation. Leading scholars and practitioners debate whether we are witnessing the end of traditional aid as we know it—or the emergence of a new model built on shared responsibility, regional leadership, and locally defined priorities.

Project Starling’s John Norris and Joshua Wells lay out four priority domains meriting attention of the next UN Secretary-General: peace and security, global development and health, institutional change and finance, and the new frontier of AI and climate.

Adam Tooze argues that recognizing that the postwar aid paradigm has run its course is not defeatism but an invitation to intellectual honesty. The assumptions undergirding decades of development practice are crumbling. This moment challenges us to reimagine the very frameworks that define progress.

Shift 2: Remodeling Development Finance Flows

At the recent G20 finance ministers’ meeting, South Africa’s central bank governor Lesetja Kganyago urged greater transparency from global credit-rating agencies, arguing that developing countries should be able to review and challenge the data and assumptions shaping their ratings. A good reminder that fiscal fairness and financial transparency are not just technical issues, but essential ingredients for equitable development.

At the G20 Finance Ministers meeting, there was at least a Ministerial Declaration on Debt Sustainability, committing to enhanced debt transparency and faster, more coordinated treatment frameworks for vulnerable countries. Critics question though, whether the statement was bold enough.

Alexia Latortue and Jared Goodman explore how country platforms are gaining traction as a tool to align national priorities, coordinate investment pipelines, and mobilize diverse financing across emerging markets. They dive into the implementation choices that make or break success. Pair with Stef Raubenheimer’s new paper on the potential of country platforms in Africa.

Read takeaways of the second regional workshop of the International Capability Building Programme, co-led with the Swedish Tax Agency, where reform teams from six African countries worked on tackling illicit financial flows through practical, problem-driven approaches. The w

orkshop focused on issues like digital economy taxation, mining-sector leakages, and data-sharing among revenue authorities, among others.

Shift 3: Strengthening Global Majority Leadership

A new reality is emerging for international NGOs. Nonprofit Quarterly explores how this shift is reshaping the aid ecosystem—prompting local organizations to assume greater leadership and redefining what equitable partnership looks like.

A new report maps the role of African multilateral and regional development banks in a reimagined development model. Despite their potential, these institutions currently account for only around 8% of all infrastructure financing on the continent. Authors urge tackling bottlenecks, such as the dominance of external decision-making structures.

Frustration is growing among civil society organizations over the World Bank’s slow progress on its own promises of citizen participation. In a new open letter coordinated by the Global Democracy Coalition, more than a dozen transparency and accountability groups urged the Bank’s leadership to deliver on its Civic and Citizen Engagement commitments—publishing disaggregated data, establishing a civil society funding facility, and embedding community-led participation across projects.

Shift 4: Improving Philanthropic Collaboration

The Bridgespan Group looks at how government and philanthropic donors can collaborate in Africa. They identify three collaboration models—from networking to pooled capital to joint initiatives—and highlight that the key barrier isn’t money, but awareness of each other’s goals and efforts.

Philea has launched a survey on how foundations are governed, seeking to understand what factors will influence forward-looking governance in the next decade and what examples of change we can learn from.

WINGS argues that today’s funders must go beyond traditional grant-making and become architects of multi-stakeholder partnerships that bring together philanthropy, government, business and civil society to drive lasting change. They urge investment in the “how” of collaboration — governance, trust, joint action, and capabilities — not just the “what” of interventions.

Check out this major review of the regranting ecosystem across Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, exploring how local intermediaries, networks, and re-granters can shape a more respectful, effective funding ecosystem.

Highlights From our Members

The Anglo American Foundation and WINGS invite you to join the Philanthropy Delegation to the G20/B20 Social Summit, 17–20 November 2025 in Johannesburg. This is a key opportunity to build on the Funders Roundtable momentum and position philanthropy as a strategic partner to governments ahead of the South African and US G20 Presidencies. Please confirm your interest by Friday, 31 October, by emailing maeve.halpin@angloamerican.com to be included in the official invitations.

For those interested in Shift 2, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation is convening a series of four follow-up calls on the future of development finance, building on its July meeting in London. The discussions will focus on catalytic capital, development bank partnerships, country fiscal space and leadership, and political economy and advocacy. To learn more or join the calls, please contact Rosalind McKenna at rmckenna@ciff.org.

Have a story, reflection, or initiative to share from your own work that can bring inspiration or lessons to other funders? Reach out to  roundtablesecretariat@taicollaborative.org. We’d love to feature it in our next issue.

With a Funder's Lens: Rethinking Development Finance in an Era of African Agency

According to Ndidi Okonkwo Nwuneli, a confident new Africa is moving beyond donor-defined models, leveraging trade, technology, and domestic institutions to craft its own development agenda. This isn't simply rhetoric—it's reflected in policy corridors from Accra to Addis Ababa, where leaders increasingly question whether external frameworks serve their populations' needs. 

After a decade of stalled reforms, urgency is finally driving African leaders to rethink domestic resource mobilization. Between aid cuts and debt crises, African nations are betting on their own tax systems as the foundation for fiscal sovereignty. Domestic resource mobilization isn't merely technical—it's political, demanding new social contracts between states and citizens, transparent governance, and progressive taxation that doesn't simply burden the poor. For funders, supporting these efforts means investing not just in technical capacity but in tax justice coalitions, parliamentary oversight capacity, and citizen movements demanding accountability for how public resources are raised and spent.

Simultaneously, de-risking instruments and blended finance mechanisms are displacing traditional grants as the primary architecture of development finance. While this mobilizes capital at scale, it also introduces troubling dynamics: private returns often trump public goods, and accountability mechanisms designed for shareholders rarely serve marginalized communities. Daniela Gabor prompts funders to ask: how can philanthropic capital stay catalytic—complementing, not just cushioning, market-led approaches that often neglect equity and accountability? 

Yet none of this unfolds in a vacuum. Ken Opalo reminds us that aid is never apolitical. As states reclaim agency amid new geopolitical alignments—whether through BRICS expansion, Gulf investment, or renewed great power competition—the terrain only grows more complex. Funders must navigate competing interests carefully, supporting autonomy and resilience rather than dependency. The risk is becoming instruments of geopolitical strategy, whether Western or otherwise; the opportunity lies in backing institutions and movements that strengthen democratic accountability and popular sovereignty, whatever their international alignments.

Upcoming International Summits and Meetings

G20 Leaders Summit (22-23 November, 2025)-This will be the first G20 on the African continent and South Africa has used the event to highlight issues of concern for the continent, including debt, investment, and disaster relief. But the hosts have a tough job given the geopolitics. Here’s a brief overview of their efforts and what’s in play. An active agenda of summits and conferences on the slides, such as the T20 Social Summit, will also explore development-related issues.

Official COP30 (20-21 November, 2025)-Hosted in the Amazonian city of Belem, Brazil, this year’s major climate summit is being divided into two different events, a Leaders Summit on the 6-7 November, 2025, followed by the official negotiations. At stake is not just whether the world can deliver on its climate promises, but also whether multilateralism can endure. Here’s a roundup of some of the key issues on the agenda for Global Majority countries.

Other Events of Interest