Development Co-operation Profiles

Rockefeller Foundation

Introduction

The Rockefeller Foundation is a New York City-based private foundation established in 1913 by Standard Oil owner John D. Rockefeller, his son John D. Rockefeller Jr and Frederick Taylor Gates. Since then, the foundation’s mission has been to promote the well-being of humanity worldwide.

The Rockefeller Foundation advances new frontiers of science, data, policy and innovation to solve global health, food, power, and equity and economic opportunity challenges. As a science-driven philanthropy focused on building collaborative relationships with partners and grantees, the Rockefeller Foundation seeks to inspire and foster large-scale human impact that promotes the well-being of humanity worldwide by identifying and accelerating breakthrough solutions, ideas and conversations.

Private development finance

The Rockefeller Foundation provided USD 132 million for development in 2022 through its grantmaking activities. Compared to 2021, this amount represents a decrease of 64% in real terms. However, the Rockefeller Foundation’s disbursements to development countries were rather stable compared to prior years.

 

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Support to Ukraine

In 2022, the Rockefeller Foundation provided USD 2.6 million of gross development finance to Ukraine to respond to the impacts of Russia’s war of aggression.

COVID-19 response

In 2022, the Rockefeller Foundation provided USD 35.9 million to support developing countries’ COVID-19 response. Of this, 72.1% concerned activities to control the spread of the coronavirus through medical interventions.

Bilateral and multilateral allocations

In 2022, the Rockefeller Foundation channelled its development finance mostly through non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society (USD 71.1 million), universities, research institutes or think tanks (USD 25.4 million) and multilateral organisations (USD 19.9 million).

 

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Multilateral channels

In 2022, the Rockefeller Foundation provided USD 19.9 million to the multilateral system, representing 15.1% 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 (40.5%), the World Bank Group (34.4%) and other multilateral organisations (34.4%), including the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and CGIAR Fund.

 

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The United Nations system received USD 8.1 million from the Rockefeller Foundation in 2022 in support of activities of the WFP (USD 5.7 million), the WHO (USD 1.9 million) and UNICEF (USD 0.5 million).

 

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Civil society organisations

In 2022, civil society organisations (CSOs) received USD 71.1 million of the Rockefeller Foundation’s gross development finance, almost all of which was earmarked for specific projects or programmes. NGOs is developing countries channelled 19.3% of these contributions, and international NGOs 59.4%.

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 Rockefeller Foundation’s development finance was primarily focused on Africa and Asia (excluding the Middle East). USD 51.7 million was allocated to Africa and USD 15.6 million to Asia (excluding the Middle East), accounting respectively for 39.2% and 11.8% of gross development finance. A sum of USD 55.8 million (42.2%) was unspecified by region in 2022, mainly including multi-regional programmes and research grants.

Figure. Bilateral private development finance by recipient country

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In 2022, 16% of gross development finance went to the top 10 recipients, most notably India, Ukraine, South Africa, Ghana and Kenya.

 

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Least developed countries (LDCs) received USD 7.7 million (5.8%) of Rockefeller Foundation’s gross disbursements in 2022. Rockefeller Foundation allocated the largest share (13.7%) of its development finance to lower middle-income countries in 2022, noting that USD 102.3 million (77.5%) 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 Rockefeller Foundation allocated USD 3.9 million of its development finance to land-locked developing countries in 2022, and USD 0.2 million to small island developing states (SIDS) in 2022, including Dominica, Fiji and the Dominican Republic.

Fragile contexts

Support to fragile contexts reached USD 12.3 million in 2022, representing 9.3% of the Rockefeller Foundation’s development finance. Of this, extremely fragile contexts received a sum of USD 1.1 million.

 

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, 56.3% of the Rockefeller Foundation’s contributions were allocated to social infrastructure and services, 18.9% to production sectors, and 18.8% to multi-sector and cross-cutting issues such as urban development or general environmental protection. In terms of sectors, the Rockefeller Foundation’s largest allocations went to health and population (USD 41.8 million), agriculture, forestry and fishing (USD 20.7 million) and education (USD 11.2 million). Humanitarian assistance amounted to USD 0.9 million.

 

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Sustainable Development Goals

In 2022, the Rockefeller Foundation committed the largest shares of its contributions to partnerships for the goals (SDG 17), good health and well-being (SDG 3) and zero hunger (SDG 2) of the United Nations 2030 Agenda. Support for gender equality and women’s empowerment amounted to USD 15.8 million. Contributions to combatting climate change totalled USD 32 million.

 

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Additional resources

Official website: www.rockefellerfoundation.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.