Billionaires can’t fill the $50 billion foreign-aid gap. The World Bank wants to make their money go further

Bill Gates plans to give away roughly $200 billion before his foundation closes in 2045. Even that won’t cover what rich governments just cut.

Official development assistance from the OECD’s donor countries fell by about $50 billion in 2025, a 23.1% drop that is the steepest on record. The Gates Foundation, the world’s largest private philanthropy, is spending about $9 billion a year. The OECD has estimated that U.S. foundations together gave roughly $6 billion a year for development in the late 2010s. That figure is outdated, but it still shows the size of the gap.

The World Bank Group is betting it can help close some of that gap by changing how philanthropic money is used. On Oct. 12, at the inaugural World Bank Group Philanthropy Forum during the IMF–World Bank Group Annual Meetings in Bangkok, the lender launched its Philanthropy Hub. The platform gives foundations, family offices, and wealthy donors a single entry point to the bank, and a way to plug their grants into its far larger lending pipeline.

“As development needs grow and resources come under pressure, partnership matters more than ever,” Paschal Donohoe, the World Bank Group’s managing director and chief knowledge officer, said in a statement.

The math problem

The stakes are no longer abstract. In his annual letter this year, Gates wrote that deaths of children under five rose in 2025 for the first time this century. He blamed the increase on falling support from rich countries. The United States cut its aid by 57% last year, and the OECD expects another 5.8% decline across donor countries in 2026.

Big philanthropy has made it clear it can’t simply take over. When the Trump administration began dismantling USAID, the Gates Foundation said no private effort could replace government-funded aid. Some private donors have still stepped in to revive individual programs that lost U.S. funding. But those rescues are small next to a $50 billion shortfall.

The World Bank’s pitch: Leverage, not replacement

The bank isn’t asking billionaires to write checks for what governments cut. It’s asking them to take the riskiest early stage of a project and leave the scale-up to the bank.

On its Hub page, the bank says philanthropy can fund early innovation, take risks, and build local capacity. That prepares ideas for larger public or private investment, which governments and development banks then finance over the long term. Donors are invited to help set priorities from the outset rather than respond to one-off funding requests.

The bank organizes that work around its flagship “missions.” These include Mission 300, which aims to connect 300 million people in sub-Saharan Africa to electricity by 2030. Health Works aims to expand affordable health care to 1.5 billion people. The others are Water Forward and AgriConnect.

Some of Asia’s biggest philanthropic players signed on in Bangkok. The Asian Venture Philanthropy Network (AVPN), the Institute of Philanthropy, the OECD’s netFWD, and the Philanthropy Asia Alliance by Temasek Trust co-convened the forum, which drew more than 200 leaders. AVPN announced a dedicated fund for Health Works. Temasek Trust is the philanthropic arm of Singapore’s state investor. It signed a partnership to explore co-financing and plans to open a Singapore “Knowledge Node” for donors in 2027.

Kate Hampton runs the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, which is funded by profits from hedge fund billionaire Chris Hohn’s TCI. She attended the forum and said in a LinkedIn post that she hoped it would improve “collaboration across the international financial system and support more children and young people to achieve their full potential.”

Questions for the future

Not everyone is sold on the idea of foundations working through a multilateral bank.

Hafeez Ladha, founding partner of Sustained Impact Partners, welcomed the bank’s move in a LinkedIn post. He praised models with “a clear target, a lending pipeline and a shared way to measure progress, so a foundation’s contribution sits inside something much larger than its own program.” But he also asked the question many donors will be weighing: Why work through the World Bank instead of on your own?

Duncan Macintosh works on nonprofit sustainability and philanthropy strategy. In a LinkedIn post, he pointed to a more basic problem: “No country can really provide detailed data on what’s happening in domestic philanthropy, let alone regionally.” Without that data, it is hard to know where philanthropic money is already flowing, let alone where it should be steered.

A broader worry is that every philanthropic rescue gives governments cover to keep cutting. Gates himself has said philanthropy is no excuse for rich countries to step back.

What donors should weigh before signing on

For foundations and family offices considering the Hub, a few practical points stand out:

• Where the money goes. Contributions are channeled into the bank’s existing missions, not a donor’s own causes. Funders whose priorities match energy access, health systems, water, or agriculture will find the most traction.
• What you gain. The main draw is scale. Your grant sits alongside World Bank financing, policy access, and country relationships that few foundations can match on their own.
• What you give up. You trade some independence for that leverage. Temasek Trust’s agreement notes that any specific financing deals will be considered separately, subject to each party’s mandates and approvals. Expect World Bank timelines and processes.
• How to engage. The Hub takes inquiries through its Get Involved page and at wbgphilanthropy@worldbankgroup.org. Asia-based donors can also go through regional networks such as AVPN.

The Hub is only weeks old, and the bank hasn’t said how much philanthropic capital it hopes to raise. The real test is whether the world’s wealthiest donors start routing money through the World Bank rather than around it. Whether that money then brings in the much larger public and private financing the bank is promising will decide whether this is a new model or just another forum.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com