Development Co-operation Profiles

MAVA Foundation

Introduction

The MAVA Foundation is a Swiss-based foundation established in 1994 by Luc Hoffmann. Born of the passion and vision of its founder, who believed in protecting the planet’s wild splendour, the MAVA Foundation conserves biodiversity for the benefit of people and nature by funding, mobilising and strengthening its partners and the conservation community.

The MAVA Foundation mainly supports projects in the Mediterranean basin, coastal West Africa, and the Alps, as well as activities with a global dimension. Programmes serving developing countries include the Mediterranean, coastal West Africa, sustainable economy and global projects.

The MAVA Foundation closed in 2022.

Private development finance

The MAVA Foundation provided USD 57.1 million for development in 2022 through its grantmaking activities. Compared to 2021, this amount represents a decrease of 22.8% in real terms.

 

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Support to Ukraine

In 2022, the MAVA Foundation provided USD 1.1 million of gross development finance to Ukraine to respond to the impacts of Russia’s war of aggression.

Bilateral and multilateral allocations

In 2022, the MAVA Foundation channelled its development finance mostly through non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society (USD 38 million), universities, research institutes or think tanks (USD 10.3 million) and public-private partnerships (PPPs), networks and the private sector (USD 6.8 million).

 

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Multilateral channels

In 2022, the MAVA Foundation provided USD 1.4 million to the multilateral system, representing 2.4% of its development finance, all of which was earmarked for specific countries, regions, themes or purposes. These multilateral contributions were provided to the United Nations (UN) system and other multilateral organisations.

 

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The UN system received USD 0.4 million from the MAVA Foundation in 2022, notably UNEP (USD 300 thousand) and FAO (USD 94 thousand).

 

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Civil society organisations

In 2022, civil society organisations (CSOs) received USD 38 million of the MAVA Foundation’s gross development finance. Of this, 18.5% was allocated to CSOs as core support, while the remaining 81.5% was earmarked for specific projects or programmes. NGOs based in developing countries channelled 25.1% of these contributions, whereas the remainder was received by international or donor-country-based NGOs.

Learn more about the DAC Recommendation on Enabling Civil Society in Development Co-operation and Humanitarian Aid.

 

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Geographic and thematic focus

In 2022, the MAVA Foundation’s development finance was primarily focused on Africa and ODA-eligible countries in Europe. USD 21.8 million was allocated to Africa and USD 6 million to Europe, accounting for 38.1% and 10.4% of gross development finance, respectively. A sum of USD 24.4 million (42.7%) was unspecified by region in 2022, mainly including multi-regional programmes.

Figure. Bilateral private development finance by recipient country

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In 2022, 27.4% of gross development finance went to the top 10 recipients, most notably Mauritania, Cabo Verde, Botswana, China (People’s Republic of) and Guinea-Bissau.

 

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Least developed countries (LDCs) received USD 8.2 million (14.3%) of the MAVA Foundation’s gross disbursements in 2022, followed by upper middle-income countries (8.4%), noting that USD 40.1 million (70.2%) was unallocated by income group.

 

Notes: LDC: least developed country; LIC: low-income country; LMIC: lower middle-income country; UMIC: upper middle-income country; MADCTs: more advanced developing countries and territories.

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Furthermore, the MAVA Foundation allocated USD 1.8 million of its development finance to land-locked developing countries in 2022, and USD 2.9 million to small island developing states (SIDS) in 2022, namely Cabo Verde and Guinea-Bissau.

Fragile contexts

Support to fragile contexts reached USD 8.2 million in 2022, representing 14.3% of the MAVA Foundation’s development finance.

 

Notes: HDP: humanitarian-development-peace. The chart represents only gross bilateral contributions that are allocated by country.

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Learn more about support to fragile contexts on the States of Fragility platform.

Sectors

In 2022, almost all (99.6%) of the MAVA Foundation’s contributions were allocated to multi-sector and cross-cutting issues, such as general environmental protection.

 

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Sustainable Development Goals

In 2022, the MAVA Foundation committed the largest shares of its contributions to life on land (SDG 15), life below water (SDG 14) and responsible consumption and production (SDG 12) of the United Nations 2030 Agenda. Contributions to combatting climate change totalled USD 8.7 million.

 

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Additional resources

Official website: https://mava-foundation.org

The methodological notes provide further details on the definitions and statistical methodologies applied, including core and earmarked contributions to multilateral organisations, the Sustainable Development Goal focus of private development finance, channels of delivery, unspecified/unallocated allocations, the gender equality policy marker, and the environment markers.