It has been a busy few weeks for the Roundtable and so many of the participating funders and their partners. During the UN General Assembly and New York Climate Week, we convened a series of sessions bringing together leaders and partners from across philanthropy and the development ecosystem. Our Multi-Stakeholder Session alone brought together 105 participants from 84 organizations for a wide-ranging conversation about how development is changing, what new approaches are already emerging, and what it will take to move from promising examples to more mainstream practice.
Many of those discussions came back to a fundamental question: who gets to shape development? Gordon Brown’s recent essay in Foreign Policy is an interesting read on this, making the case for starting with local civic repair as a foundation for more effective international cooperation. I also recently explored a related question in a new piece for Devex: what does it really mean for development to be country-led? Shifting decision-making from donors to governments is not enough; civil society and communities must also have a meaningful role.
It was encouraging to see Roundtable members align on shared priorities during the Leadership Meeting, alongside strong enthusiasm for President Mahama's Accra Reset model for future development cooperation. Read more in this issue’s Deep Dive.
This month’s edition picks up on these and other conversations shaping the sector. Enjoy reading, and as always, reach out with suggestions and ideas for future issues.
Warmly,
Soheila and the Roundtable Team
Roundtable Latest
Our Initiative Mapping has had a refresh! We have relaunched this living resource, which now tracks 128 initiatives reshaping international cooperation, development finance, locally led development and philanthropic collaboration. Built with funders in mind, it offers a way to spot emerging trends, discover potential partners, and navigate a rapidly evolving development ecosystem.
Alongside it, we have developed this Funders’ Roundtable Initiative Atlas, bringing some of the most interesting patterns in the data to life. Among the findings: 90 of the 128 initiatives work across regions, 26 are led from the Global South, and nearly half focus on international cooperation and global governance reform. The Atlas also reveals where new activity is emerging and how these efforts are spreading across regions.
And one more piece of good news: We are now on LinkedIn! This gives us another space to share what we are learning, exchange ideas and stay connected with the wider community. Follow us, explore the updated Initiative Mapping and the new Atlas, and let us know what we might be missing. We’d love to keep building the conversation with you.
What’s Emerging Across the Field: Insights on the Four Shifts
Shift 1: Building a New Era of Development Cooperation
What should development cooperation deliver, and how must it change? The Future of Development Cooperation Coalition’s new report, Driving Change, sets out four enduring purposes and five principles for more effective cooperation, putting country leadership, fairer rules and stronger systems at the center.
The Sustainable Development Goals are intended to be delivered by 2030. Rather than replace them with another list of targets, Naturally Together points towards a shared direction for international cooperation through 2050. Ben Phillips urges we put nature at the center of that vision, shifting the focus towards the systemic transformations needed to get there.
The Future of International Cooperation Report 2026, by Richard Ponzio, Rebecca Snyder and William Durch, maps out a more inclusive and networked approach to global governance, connecting reforms underway today with the institutions and partnerships needed for a post-2030 development agenda. At its core is a challenge that cuts across international cooperation: rebuilding trust in a system increasingly under strain.
Responding to a Center for Global Development critique of the aid system, OECD Development Assistance Committee Chair Carsten Staur makes the case that change is already underway. As traditional ODA shrinks, he sees a more catalytic role for aid, greater ownership by partner countries, and ODA increasingly positioned within a much broader development finance landscape.
Shift 2: Remodeling Development Finance Flows
US$728.6 billion flowed to low- and middle-income countries through remittances in 2025: more than four times official development assistance and even surpassing foreign direct investment to these countries. New findings from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) underscore just how significant remittances have become in the development finance landscape.
In this podcast, Kate Hampton, CEO of the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, explores how shrinking aid budgets can deliver greater impact. Speaking with Ravi Gurumurthy of Nesta, a UK-based innovation organization, she discusses international finance reform, debt action, and more effective approaches to delivering and scaling development solutions.
What does moving beyond traditional aid actually look like for Africa? Leshan L. Naisho examines a financing landscape increasingly shaped by domestic resource mobilisation, private capital and new partnerships, alongside the structural constraints that continue to limit countries’ ability to finance their own development.
As developing countries face financing needs far beyond available public lending and aid, Reuters reports that 30 development banks and finance institutions have launched new joint guidelines to better measure (and ultimately increase) the private capital they mobilize for emerging markets.
Shift 3: Strengthening Locally-Led Development
Based on experiences across Latin America and beyond, Rainforest Foundation US examines the evolving role of intermediaries in getting more funding directly to Indigenous Peoples and local communities, from navigating donor and compliance requirements to helping shift resources and decision-making closer to communities.
This piece in The Guardian looks at how African countries are responding to shrinking external aid, with a focus on the Accra Reset’s push for greater country ownership and health systems built around national priorities rather than donor agendas.
Development finance may be changing, but who risks being left out of the rebuild? John Hecklinger of Global Fund for Children argues that community-based civil society must be treated as essential “social infrastructure,” not simply as implementers of decisions made elsewhere.
Writing in Stanford Social Innovation Review, Aleem Walji argues for working with the actors best positioned to deliver affordable and durable solutions at scale, whether governments, local businesses, investors or other partners. His argument shifts the question from who should deliver to who can deliver best.
Shift 4: Improving Philanthropic Collaboration
Is Philanthropy investing enough in what makes collaboration possible? Writing for EDGE Funders Alliance, Kinga Wisniewska makes the case for funding the networks, relationships and shared spaces that allow funders to learn together, coordinate resources and act collectively, treating philanthropic infrastructure as essential to better collaboration, not simply as overhead.
After hearing from grantees across 21 “bright spot” collaborative funds, the Center for Effective Philanthropy found one model with particularly strong feedback on impact, relationships and grantmaking processes. This piece takes a closer look at what is working, and how putting movement leaders at the heart of funding decisions may be part of the answer.
One of the Eleanor Crook Foundation’s flagship initiatives is gaining significant public-sector momentum. Devex traces the rapid rise of Operation End Starvation and how it secured major U.S. government backing, bringing philanthropic resources and expertise together with public funding to scale its reach.
BlueMark’s Sarah Gelfand and Jack Isaacs explore in Alliance Magazine why impact investing may be more accessible and transparent than many foundations think. Better tools, clearer standards and a growing evidence base, they argue, are making it easier for foundations to look beyond traditional grantmaking and put more of their capital to work in line with their missions.
HIGHLIGHT
Can AI create meaningful economic opportunities for communities across the Global South? Launched during UNGA with support from The Rockefeller Foundation, Schmidt Philanthropies and the Government of India, the new Institute for Human Flourishing will research how AI can help increase incomes and opportunities for vulnerable communities, turning evidence into scalable models and policy recommendations. Read more from The Rockefeller Foundation
Deep Dive
Global South Leadership Is Taking Center Stage. But Where Does Leadership Actually Sit?
Across the conversations the Funders’ Roundtable held during UNGA week, one message resonated above all: Global South leadership is taking center stage.
At the Accra Reset Full Circle event, President Mahama of Ghana put it plainly: “There is no ownership without control, and no sovereignty without domestic accountability.” Throughout the week, we heard calls to leverage Global South and diaspora capital, strengthen civil society, and turn high-level ambition into tangible results for local communities.
Yet participants surfaced an important distinction: being present in a conversation is not the same as having the power to shape it, or the resources and decision-making authority to act.
Our data points to a similar tension. For several months, we have been mapping initiatives shaping the future of development, building a living picture of where new approaches are emerging and who is leading them. Of the 128 initiatives identified so far, only 26 are led from the Global South. So what would it take to shift not just the conversation, but who has the power to shape the system?
That question was at the heart of our September 23 Multi-Stakeholder Session, The Future is Here – Embedding New Approaches to Development. The examples showed that alternatives are not theoretical.
Myrna Cunningham of Pawanka Fund spoke about Indigenous self-determination and self-financing. Khushboo Awasthi of ShikshaLokam showed how “micro-improvements” can enable communities to identify and solve problems themselves. Almaz Negash of African Diaspora Network challenged us to think “beyond remittances”, unlocking diaspora capital, talent and time.
Participants also offered practical suggestions: back experts on the ground; fund organizations, leaders and movements, not only projects; and invest in the ecosystems and “connective tissue” that enable collective action. One suggestion captured the shift particularly clearly: “Choose not to hold the power. Act as an enabler and then step back.”
The question after UNGA is not whether new approaches exist. They do. It is how philanthropy can help create the conditions for them to grow, bringing its resources, networks and convening power while making more space for those closest to the challenges to determine what comes next.
Crucially, this means helping to operationalize visions like the Accra Reset so that high-level commitments deliver real, accountable results for communities.
Events of Interest
SOCAP26 (Unlock the power of markets for impact) - Chicago - 12-14 October
World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings - Bangkok - 12-18 October
Gulf Philanthropy Forum - Abu Dhabi - 15 October
Africa Philanthropy Forum - Cape Town - 25-27 October
Sankalp Forum (Empowering Global South entrepreneurs) - Lucknow (India) - 27-28 October
World Business Forum - WOBI - 4-5 November
AVPA Conference - Cape Town - 9-11 November
Paris Peace Forum - Paris - 10-11 November
Global exChange Summit - Johannesburg - 16-18 November
Africa Philanthropy Day 2026 (APD4, OECD/AU) - Paris, 25 November
27th Jacques Polak Annual Research Conference - DC - 12-13 November
#ShiftThePower Global Summit - Kathmandu - 2-4 December
Redefining Global Trust. Doha Forum 2026 - Doha - 5-6 December