Vince Chadwick

1 month ago | devex.com | Vince Chadwick |Colum Lynch

The head of the United Nations’ chief sexual and reproductive health agency told her staff she planned to step down on July 15, months before her term was scheduled to end in early October. Dr. Natalia Kanem, executive director of the U.N. Population Fund, UNFPA, informed U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres and the agency’s executive board president of her plans to step down this summer. “It’s time to pass on the baton,” she said in a videotaped address to staff, obtained by Devex.

1 month ago | devex.com | Vince Chadwick

Spending cuts at home are limiting the bloc's ability to respond. Publicly, the European Commission says it “cannot fill the gap” as the United States leaves its role as the Western world’s top donor of foreign aid.

1 month ago | devex.com | Adva Saldinger |Vince Chadwick

Leslie Maasdorp is not new to development finance, but he is new to the helm of British International Investment, the U.K. development finance institution. He’s challenged the status quo in the past: In a 2021 opinion piece in the Financial Times, he argued that multilateral development banks don’t actually need their coveted AAA ratings and could increase their lending capacity if they weren’t wedded to it.

1 month ago | devex.com | Vince Chadwick

If you thought Europe might step up as the United States steps away from foreign aid, think again. Devex has seen the “lines to take” — Brussels-speak for what European Union officials should say when someone asks them a curly question — following the U.S. decision to terminate 83% of its USAID foreign assistance programs.

2 months ago | devex.com | Vince Chadwick

The head of the French Development Agency said something interesting last week. Asked about the impact of the Trump administration’s cuts to foreign aid, Rémy Rioux told Radio Classique that the U.S. president is throwing into question a kind of broad agreement — or “grand accord” — that had existed between Europe and the United States. “The U.S. took care of security and humanitarian aid … and they do three times as much as the Europeans there,” Rioux said.