This week marks one year since the U.S. government functionally terminated USAID. The consequences remain dire: life-saving programs ended, essential services were disrupted, trusted partnerships collapsed, and communities around the world continue to bear the human cost.

We should name that loss clearly. But one year later, another question feels urgent: Who is shaping what comes next?

In 2023, we went on a global listening tour to ask hundreds of community members and leaders, entrepreneurs, and policymakers across the globe a simple but vital question: If you could redesign global development systems for the future, what would you do differently?

What we heard was about so much more than just USAID.

It was about a broader question: What do systems look like when they’re actually built by the people they are meant to serve?

As the field continues to reorganize itself, that question feels more urgent than ever.

The Future Is Already Being Built

Too often, conversations in the United States still begin with the assumption that Washington, DC, must decide what comes next.

But the future is already being built. No one is waiting for Washington.

It is being built by entrepreneurs creating jobs today; health workers delivering life-saving services against all odds; community leaders solving problems without the help of outside organizations; public servants improving institutions with limited resources; and young people building businesses, platforms, and civic initiatives while the international community underestimates them.

The question is whether the people building that future are also helping write the rules that govern it.

Are social innovators, local leaders, entrepreneurs, community-based organizations, and frontline practitioners being invited into the conversations taking place in Washington, London, Geneva, and other global capitals to define what comes next? Or are they still being treated primarily as beneficiaries rather than decision-makers?

A development system designed to support innovation, enterprise, and long-term opportunity cannot be built only by people who have encountered those things from the outside.

The gap has been visible in global development for years. Many of the people shaping entrepreneurship and economic growth policy have never made payroll with limited cash, found a first customer, rebuilt after a failed pilot, or grown a business without an institution behind them. They understood development policy. They did not always understand what it takes to build, sustain, and scale an organization focused on delivering impact.

Insider expertise is not the only expertise that matters.

The entrepreneur trying to keep a business alive, the local operator moving from pilot to scale, the community leader navigating decisions made far away, and the public servant improving a system from within all bring expertise that is too often undervalued. They are not simply stakeholders to be consulted. They are among the people best positioned to say what needs to change, and how.

From Picking Winners to Supporting Discovery

No donor or government can reliably anticipate which sectors, technologies, or delivery models will matter most or work best.

As economist Yuen Yuen Ang writes, “The challenge for industrial policy is not simply picking winners but discovering them.”

That observation has implications far beyond industrial policy.

As economies evolve, external partners should move away from the impulse to prescribe solutions for communities they do not live in. Instead, their role should increasingly be to create the conditions for local ideas to emerge, be tested, and grow.

Too often, organizations are asked to prove their effectiveness before they have received the resources needed to build, test, and scale. The result is a system that rewards existing access to capital and institutional backing while overlooking the builders closest to both the challenge and the opportunity.

This is what we have previously described as the “tyranny of evidence.” It is not an argument against evidence. It is an argument for creating more opportunities to generate it.

As the field is forced to evolve, we should be asking not only what evidence matters, but who gets the opportunity to produce it, and what kinds of models are the best to promote long-term, sustainable economic and human development and flourishing.

Different Problems Need Different Institutions

One of Unlock Aid’s core principles is that immediate humanitarian response should be approached differently from long-term economic development.

Responding to a humanitarian emergency requires one set of capabilities. Supporting economic growth, strengthening health systems, or expanding opportunity requires another.

Yet we often collapse them into a single conversation about “aid.”

A crisis requires speed, logistics, protection, and life-saving support. Building jobs, stronger health systems, public institutions, and long-term opportunity requires patient investment, different partnerships, and sustained attention over years.

The challenge of asking the same institution to simultaneously address both mandates is that, when a major crisis emerges, such as the devastating earthquakes in Venezuela last week, it understandably absorbs senior leadership, political attention, and resources. The slower, more patient work of supporting enterprise development, strengthening institutions, and expanding economic opportunity in geographies not affected by crisis can too often then move to the back burner.

If different challenges require different solutions, they also require different expertise, different partnerships, and different voices at the table, along with more fit-for-purpose institutional architecture that can respond to different needs. The question is not simply how we rebuild development systems, but who we invite to help design them, and what we ask them to do.

The Questions That Matter

One of the clearest lessons from our work is that progress often begins by asking better questions.

As the field enters its next chapter, especially among the flurry of “reimagine aid” initiatives, these are some of the questions we hope remain at the center of those conversations:

• Which voices remain absent from decision-making spaces?

• How do we create room for experimentation while maintaining accountability?

• How do we balance evidence with the need to invest in emerging solutions and also promote long-term and sustainable economic development?

• How do we better match different development challenges with the right models, partnerships, and leaders?

• Most importantly, how do we ensure that the people closest to the challenges are also closest to the decisions?

The people we spoke with during our 2023 listening tour were not simply asking for a more effective version of the old system. They were asking for new models that recognize local leadership as expertise, create more room for experimentation and discovery, deliberately support enterprise and long-term opportunity, and give people closest to the challenges a meaningful role in shaping the decisions that affect them.

The future of global development will not be determined only by what replaces USAID. It will be determined by whether the next generation of policymakers is willing to look beyond fighting for restoration of what was, and to ask what kinds of institutions the future needs.

To Progress,
Unlock Aid

P.S. Entrepreneurs around the world aren’t waiting for Washington, DC to decide what comes next. They’re already building it. That’s why we’ve launched the Solutions Index: a new reference tool for donors, policymakers, and partners that identifies among the most promising organizations delivering results across global health, food security, nutrition, and other sectors.

We presently have an open call for submissions for organizations for our Future Generations Index edition, designed to highlight pacesetting organizations working on the following challenges:

• Building the industries, jobs, and employment rails of the future;

• Economic opportunity, financial inclusion, and livelihoods;

• Education and pathways to opportunity;

• Mothers, babies, caregivers, and systems of care;

• Infrastructure for thriving and resilient communities

If you’re an entrepreneur, click here to learn more and apply by July 8.

Alternatively, do you know an organization that should be considered that you’d like to nominate? Click here to nominate an organization to Unlock Aid’s Future Generations Solutions Index.

Across the world, and against great odds, people are consciously building the conditions the next generation will inherit: healthier childhoods, stronger communities, meaningful work, economic security, and a real chance to shape a more just and shared future.

Today, we are excited to invite organizations doing that essential work to apply to Unlock Aid’s third and final Solutions Index: the Future Generations Solutions Index.

The Future Generations Solutions Index will highlight solutions that expand what is possible for the next generation by strengthening the foundations for lifelong wellbeing, building productive industries and pathways to meaningful work, and growing the economic opportunities that allow households to thrive.

Organizations working across these domains should apply for consideration by Wednesday, July 8.

Eligibility is open to organizations working in low- and middle-income countries. Potential inclusion is not restricted to organizations already affiliated with Unlock Aid.

Click here to apply.

Launching the Future Generations Solutions Index

Over the past year, Unlock Aid has published Solutions Indexes focused on health and on food security and nutrition: two essential foundations for human flourishing.

The Future Generations Index, our third and final edition, asks a broader question:

What would it take to build the kinds of futures we would want for the next generation, everywhere?

Children and young people need more than a single intervention to reach their full potential. They need the chance to grow up healthy and safe. They need families with economic security, schools and communities that support learning and wellbeing, pathways to meaningful work, and a future in which they can participate, contribute, and thrive.

We are looking for organizations that are expanding what is possible for the next generation: not only by addressing immediate needs, but by building the foundations for lifelong wellbeing, meaningful work, productive industries, and shared prosperity.

Click here to apply.

Why this matters now

We are in the midst of a once-in-a-generation shift in how global development is understood and delivered.

At a moment when the future of global development is being reimagined, we are focusing on the long-term development side of the work: investing in the enterprises, systems, and institutions that help partners around the world build broad-based prosperity, safety, and opportunity for their citizens.

This is not simply a question of providing high-quality social services. It is also about building productive industries, locally-rooted enterprises, infrastructure, institutions, and economic opportunities needed to build strong futures. We want to highlight solutions that create markets, jobs, capabilities, and systems that allow people and countries to participate more fully in the economies of the future.

As governments, donors, investors, and philanthropic leaders look for new ways to support long-term prosperity, they need to know which pacesetters are building locally-grounded solutions that can create real pathways to opportunity.

The Future Generations Solutions Index is designed to close that visibility gap.

Inclusion in the Index does not guarantee funding from Unlock Aid, any donor institution, or any government partner. The purpose of this Index is to identify organizations that can show evidence of impact, financial sustainability, local buy-in, and capacity to scale.

We will publish the names and mission statements of selected organizations, creating a curated list of leading innovators building the future for children, young people, and families. We will share the Index with policymakers, funders, and partners actively seeking scalable solutions, and when partners ask us for help identifying the next generation of organizations to meet, we will turn first to organizations included in the Index.

Click here to apply.

What we are looking for

We are seeking organizations working across five core categories:

1. Building the industries, jobs, and employment rails of the future
Solutions building the sectors, enterprises, and markets that can create good jobs and enable future generations to shape and benefit from the next waves of economic growth.

Examples include first movers that enter or create new markets, as well as platforms that build local industry infrastructure, connect producers and talent to buyers, and help other models scale across sectors such as food systems, healthcare, clean energy, manufacturing, digital services, and emerging technology.

2. Economic opportunity, financial inclusion, and livelihoods
Solutions helping individuals, households, entrepreneurs, and businesses earn, save, invest, manage risk, access capital, and build greater economic security over time.

Examples include digital payments, savings and credit, youth-friendly financial services, insurance, asset financing, working capital, remittances, income-generating tools, financial resilience models, and financing and market-access platforms that enable small and growing businesses to start, operate, expand, and create jobs.

3. Education and pathways to opportunity
Solutions helping children and young people build the knowledge, confidence, relationships, and practical pathways they need to participate fully in work, civic life, and the future of their communities.

Examples include literacy, numeracy, tutoring, school improvement, teacher support, learning recovery, education technology, career guidance, school-to-work transitions, and support for learners facing the greatest barriers.

4. Mothers, babies, caregivers, and systems of care
Solutions that strengthen healthy beginnings, caregiving environments, and the systems families rely on during the earliest and most formative years of life.

Examples include maternal and child health, child nutrition, childcare models, caregiver support, parenting support, developmental screening, early childhood services, and integrated models that support mothers, babies, families, and care workers.

5. Infrastructure for thriving and resilient communities
Solutions building the conditions communities need to live healthy, safe, connected, and economically resilient lives.

Examples include clean water, sanitation, safe housing, reliable and efficient energy, digital connectivity, transportation access, climate-shock readiness, community safety, and other enabling infrastructure that supports household wellbeing and long-term opportunity.

Organizations will be evaluated based on:

• Demonstrated impact and measurable outcomes

• Organizational maturity and absorptive capacity

• Financial sustainability and revenue diversification

• Local endorsement and country alignment

• A clear pathway to scale impact cost-effectively

We welcome applications from organizations with a range of models, including social enterprises, nonprofit organizations, platforms, and hybrid approaches. We recognize that the pathway to financial sustainability differs across sectors and operating contexts, and these factors will be considered as part of a holistic review.

Expert Review Committee

To bring independence and expertise to the review process, an expert Review Committee will review applying organizations:

• Efosa Ojomo, Director of Global Prosperity at the Clayton Christensen Institute and co-author of The Prosperity Paradox

• Shiro Wachira, Head of Portfolio & Investor Relations at Equator

• Ineza Mutimura, Co-Founder & CEO of Funders of African Descent

• Daniel Yu, Founding Partner of Africa Jobs Fund

• Shalane Yuen, Founding Managing Director at Trevor Noah Foundation

All individuals are advising as volunteers in their personal capacities.

How to participate

If you are building a proven, scalable solution that expands opportunity for children, youth, and families, please complete our intake form by Wednesday, July 8, 2026, at 23:59 Pacific Time.

We expect to publish the first edition of the Future Generations Solutions Index on Monday, July 27.

We strongly encourage organizations with demonstrated traction, measurable outcomes, and clear scaling pathways to apply.

Click here to apply.

If you have questions about the process, please reach out to us at hello [at] unlockaid.org.

The Future Generations Solutions Index exists to help reframe what we look for in the future of global development: highlighting the builders creating both the human foundations and the economic engines that allow children, young people, families, and countries to thrive.

Please share this call with organizations, founders, and networks building toward that future.

Apply today.

To Progress,
Unlock Aid

We want to share something important: after nearly five years of work, Unlock Aid will begin winding down operations later this year.

This is a deliberate decision. The work is not finished, but the moment has changed. What is needed now is different, and so is our role in it.

Our five-year campaign

When we started Unlock Aid five years ago, we were clear about what we set out to do.

We spoke with more than 60 social entrepreneur leaders and heard the same thing again and again. High-impact organizations had built models deeply embedded in the communities they served, yet the traditional aid system routinely bypassed them. It operated in parallel to local systems, rewarded process over results, and concentrated funding among a small group of incumbents. For many of these organizations, scaling was nearly impossible.

Three barriers came up consistently:

1. Power was concentrated in a way that limited access to resources.

2. Incentives favored compliance over outcomes.

3. And the people closest to the problems were often the furthest from decision-making.

We entered this work to change who holds power, who gets heard, and which organizations get to shape solutions. We built Unlock Aid as a time-bound effort that operated with the ethos of a high-intensity political campaign designed to move those conditions.

At the time, many of our ideas sat outside the mainstream of global development. Or, they were seen as “nice to have” goals to be realized someday in the distant future. Today, we are seeing real movement across each of these areas, enough to fundamentally shift what is possible over time.

Why now

Unlock Aid was designed as a time-bound effort from the start.

Effective advocacy requires different roles. Some institutions hold a long-term North Star. Others bring focused energy to move the field forward. We were the latter.

The world also looks different than it did in 2021. The ideas we and others championed – a Beyond Aid future built on investment, local leadership, financial sustainability, and pay for results – have moved from the margins into the mainstream. In many ways, that future is already taking shape.

Countries are asserting greater agency. High-impact organizations are continuing their work without waiting for systems to catch up. New funding models are emerging that prioritize results, ownership, and long-term sustainability.

The language of “aid” itself is becoming outdated, and so are many of the structures built around it, including ours. Continuing in our current form would mean holding onto a model built for a system that no longer exists.

The rules are changing. The market is moving. Innovators are no longer on the outside looking in. We believe the Overton window has shifted in a way that opens up a different path forward.

Whether these shifts fully materialize in 2026 or over the next several years, a new trajectory is becoming clear.

What comes next

The disruptions of the past year have had real consequences. Systems people relied on broke down. Communities were forced to adapt in real time.

That reality makes clear what this moment demands from what comes next.

A credible pathway to sustainability without long-term dependence on U.S. funding should be part of every development investment moving forward. Systems should be designed to strengthen country ownership, support broad-based economic growth, and scale what works over time.

It also calls for directing resources more clearly to those closest to the work. The future we have been working toward depends on that shift happening in practice, not just in theory.

As we look to our final year, which we expect to be our most consequential, we are focused on three priorities:

1. Shaping the market
   We will continue working to ensure funders and policymakers prioritize investment in social entrepreneurship and innovation. This year we launched our inaugural Solutions Index, an expert-curated list of 35 organizations shaping the future of global health. We followed that with a food security edition, highlighting 25 innovators in school feeding, seed research, and agricultural development. In the coming weeks, we will launch an open call focused on livelihoods, education, and economic development.
   

2. Getting funds to high-impact organizations
   We believe 2026 is the pivotal year to move institutional capital. If funding does not flow this year at meaningful levels, and in ways that reach countries and frontline innovators, it is unlikely to shift in the near term. To support this, we have facilitated roundtables connecting Solutions Index organizations with donors and country leaders, and supported funding platforms designed to channel capital directly to frontline groups. These models prioritize results, local ownership, and long-term integration into national systems.
   

3. Passing the baton to what comes next
   We will work with our community of entrepreneurs and funders to identify organizations best positioned to translate this shift into durable change. In the United States, this includes supporting efforts that move policy conversations toward a new framework rooted in local leadership, self-reliance, and mutual benefit. Globally, it means investing in organizations that can connect governments with the innovators best positioned to strengthen service delivery and scale proven solutions.

Unlock Aid was never meant to be one voice or one permanent institution. The next phase of this work will be carried forward by governments, innovators, and organizations building systems that reflect this new reality. Our role now is to help make that transition possible.

Thank you

This work has always been bigger than Unlock Aid. It has been powered by a community of builders, policymakers, funders, and advocates committed to a better system.

To our community of more than 200 social entrepreneurs and our funding partners, thank you.

The old system is not coming back. What replaces it is already being built. The people closest to the work are ready to lead.

To Progress,
Unlock Aid

Today, we’re proud to announce the second edition of the Unlock Aid Solutions Index, a curated directory of proven, pacesetting organizations tackling some of the world’s most pressing development challenges.

This edition highlights 25 leading innovators working across food security and nutrition, spanning agricultural productivity, supply chains and distribution, nutrition and school feeding, market access and finance, and digital systems.

Why we’re continuing the Solutions Index

Across global development, a new generation of organizations is delivering measurable impact at scale while building financially sustainable models.

These innovators are working through markets and alongside governments, allowing them to scale faster, operate more efficiently, and deliver stronger, longer-lasting results than many traditional approaches.

Yet as with global health, many of these organizations have emerged outside the conventional “aid” system and remain difficult for the world’s largest donors, governments, and investors to find and engage.

The Solutions Index exists to change that.

By giving decision-makers visibility into organizations already delivering results, we aim to reduce the friction of finding and partnering with proven innovators.

When these innovators succeed, they do more than deliver impact. They demonstrate that a different model is possible – one built on sustainability, local ownership, and real results.

This moment matters. The global development system continues to undergo a once-in-a-generation shift. The future will not be defined only by how much funding is deployed, but by who that funding reaches and whether it supports solutions that are built to last.

Introducing the Food Security & Nutrition Solutions Index

This edition focuses on food systems and nutrition, one of the most urgent and foundational challenges facing countries today.

Food systems determine:

• Whether farmers can sustainably increase productivity and incomes

• Whether nutritious food is affordable and accessible to families

• Whether supply chains can reduce loss and reach the last mile

• Whether countries can build resilience to shocks and crises

Following a competitive review process, our Expert Review Committee selected 25 organizations from a strong pool of dozens of applicants working across food systems.

Reviewers evaluated organizations across criteria including:

• Demonstrated impact and measurable outcomes

• Organizational maturity and absorptive capacity

• Financial sustainability and revenue diversification

• Local endorsement and country alignment

• Clear pathways to scaling cost-effectively

Note on organizations working in humanitarian contexts: Our Expert Review Committee noted that operating a sustainable business model in acute humanitarian settings presents unique challenges, especially where markets or governments may be unstable or not exist. These factors were considered during a holistic review process.

Explore the Food Security & Nutrition Solutions Index

Read about the Food Security and Nutrition innovators in our Solutions Index.

→ Click here to view the original call for applications and evaluation framework

Want to see our first edition of the Solutions Index focused on health pacesetters? Click here.

Our Gratitude to the Expert Review Committee

This edition of the Solutions Index would not exist without the rigor, judgment, and expertise of our Expert Review Committee. Their insights and deliberation shaped the final cohort and ensured a high bar for inclusion.

Thank you to:

• John R. Tyson, Board Member and Strategy Committee Chair, Tyson Foods

• Amit Paley, CEO, Malnutrition Advocacy Fund; President for Global Advocacy and Philanthropy, Eleanor Crook Foundation

• Sam Thevasagayam, Director, Livestock Team, Agriculture Development, Gates Foundation

• Euler Bropleh, Founder & Managing Partner, VestedWorld

What Comes Next

The Solutions Index will continue with one final edition in the weeks ahead.

This next and final iteration will focus on the infrastructure needed to support the next generation around the world, including areas such as education, housing, livelihoods, and digital infrastructure.

By 2050, Africa alone is projected to be home to more than 40 percent of the world’s youth. The question is not whether this generation will shape the future. It is whether the systems around them are built to help them thrive.

As countries and communities look to translate this demographic moment into long-term prosperity, foundational infrastructure will play a defining role.

For organizations working in these areas, this will be the final opportunity to be considered for inclusion in the Solutions Index.

We look forward to sharing more details soon.

The Beyond Aid Future Is Taking Shape

Across both health and food systems, the signal is increasingly clear. Countries want partners and solutions that last.

The organizations featured in this Index reflect that future, one defined by performance, sustainability, and local alignment.

Our vision is that the Solutions Index becomes a practical tool to help connect innovators and decision-makers and accelerate the shift toward a more effective and enduring model of global development.

To the organizations selected, congratulations. To those building what comes next, we see you. And to the policymakers and funders looking for a better way forward, this is where to start.

To Progress,
Unlock Aid

We just returned from roundtables in Uganda, Kenya, and Rwanda with a clear message from ministry of health officials: they want to work with a new generation of high-impact, cost-effective partners with solutions ready to scale.

Meanwhile, new funding mechanisms to support those partnerships are starting to materialize.

Below are three funding pathways innovators should be engaging right now:

1. The State Department’s Advancing Global Health APS

On Friday, the U.S. State Department released the Advancing Global Health Annual Program Statement (APS), the first competitive funding opportunity released under its new America First Global Health Strategy.

For innovators, this represents a meaningful shift in how government partnerships can begin. Instead of requiring lengthy proposals and extensive registration requirements upfront, organizations can start with a simple five-page concept note, significantly lowering barriers to entry. Only organizations invited to a second round will then be asked to provide additional due diligence and documentation.

The first opportunities focus on disease outbreak response and child protection, with additional thematic areas expected to follow. Eligibility is broad: U.S. and local organizations, for-profit and nonprofit enterprises, universities, faith-based organizations, and public international organizations can all apply. Up to 100 awards are anticipated, ranging from $500,000 to $250 million, with a total pool of up to $4.5 billion.

To put forward a credible application, organizations need to demonstrate that their approach can deploy quickly, deliver measurable results, and support a sustainable transition to host-country ownership.

Applications are accepted across four rolling windows, the first of which opens now and closes May 31. Subsequent windows run through August, November, and February. We expect addenda specifying additional funding opportunities to be released during these windows.

For now, the State Department has limited this APS to health-related initiatives, but we are cautiously optimistic they’ll use this more flexible spending model for other sectors. The key takeaway for innovators who have been discouraged in the past by the high bar just to apply: this process starts with five pages, not fifty.

2. Countries Are Increasingly Driving Health Partnerships

The second pathway for innovators is engaging with countries directly. The Department of State has signed global health Memoranda of Understanding with 24 countries totaling nearly $20 billion in commitments. These agreements give governments significant say in determining how funds will be spent — and to whom resources will flow.

Last week, Unlock Aid hosted a series of Health Innovation Roundtables in three of those countries – Uganda, Kenya, and Rwanda – bringing together nearly 20 high-impact organizations from our Health Solutions Index, host government officials responsible for managing their national health systems, and representatives from U.S. embassies.

Two messages came through clearly across every conversation: 1) Countries will have substantial autonomy in deciding how MOU funds get allocated, and 2) Don’t expect U.S. embassies to be publishing many open RFPs, as was past practice. Instead, engage countries directly.

We want to be clear-eyed here, however: implementation timelines will vary significantly by country, thematic priorities will differ (some disease areas are emphasized more in certain countries than others), and some of these agreements have faced delays over legal concerns and co-financing expectations. But none of that changes the core advice — the organizations that will be best positioned when funding does flow are the ones building relationships now, not later.

This advice to engage countries goes beyond the MOUs, too. Across the board, countries are taking greater ownership of their health expenditures and systems. Innovators should be building relationships with ministries of health and national health agencies regardless of whether a formal MOU is in place.

Ministry of health officials told us they are actively looking for partners who can help them:

• Strengthen their national health infrastructure,

• Improve supply chains and disease surveillance systems, and

• Deliver results in more cost-effective and sustainable ways.

3. The DIV Fund Is Open

Finally, while not a government funding mechanism, high-impact innovators should be aware of the relaunch of the DIV Fund, which builds on the legacy of USAID’s Development Innovation Ventures, one of the highest-returning programs in the agency’s history.

The new independent fund launched with $48 million in philanthropic backing and offers three tiers of grants calibrated to evidence and stage of development: support for early pilots, rigorous testing of ideas that have shown promise at pilot scale, and large-scale expansion of solutions ready to deliver impact at scale.

Importantly, the DIV Fund is not limited to health, making it a valuable opportunity for innovators across sectors who can demonstrate evidence of impact and a credible path to scale.

A Moment for Builders

Taken together, these developments point to something important: new pathways are emerging for innovators to engage with governments and funders. While the most momentum right now is in health, we’re cautiously optimistic that more sectors will follow.

For organizations building proven, scalable, and cost-effective solutions, now is the time to act.

To Progress,
Unlock Aid

P.S. Due to strong interest and multiple requests for extensions, we are extending the deadline for applications to the Food Security and Nutrition Solutions Index until Friday, March 13. If your organization is building solutions across food systems, agriculture, nutrition, or food distribution, we encourage you to apply and share the opportunity with others in your network.

If you are building solutions in food security, agriculture, nutrition, or food distribution, this message is for you.

We are set to launch the next iteration of our Solutions Index, with our next edition focused on food security and nutrition solutions.

We’re inviting leading food systems innovators to apply for consideration by Monday, March 9.

Eligibility is open to any organization working across food systems and nutrition solutions. Potential inclusion is not restricted to organizations affiliated with Unlock Aid.

Click here to apply.

Launching the Food Security and Nutrition Solutions Index: Background

Last year, we launched the Solutions Index to identify proven, high-impact solutions that governments, investors, and philanthropic leaders can work with today to deliver measurable results at scale.

Our first edition of the Solutions Index focused on global health and health supply chains.

Now we’re launching the next edition of the Solutions Index, this time to identify pacesetting innovators working in the fields of food security and nutrition.

Our goal is to spotlight partners that are:

• Delivering measurable results at scale

• Can show business model sustainability through diversified revenue sources

• Demonstrate local buy-in and endorsement from the communities they serve

• Able to deliver impact more cost-effectively than traditional aid models

We are particularly interested in soliciting applications from organizations with a clear ability to absorb $5M–$50M+ in catalytic capital to scale proven models.

Note on Humanitarian Contexts: We recognize that operating a sustainable business model in acute humanitarian settings presents unique challenges, especially where markets or governments may be unstable or not exist. We encourage organizations in these contexts to still apply; these factors will be weighted during our holistic review process.

Click here to apply.

Why this matters now

We’re in the midst of a once-in-a-generation shift in global development systems.

Governments, donors, and philanthropists are reassessing how they deploy funding, wanting to deliver high levels of impact but with access to fewer resources. Decision makers also want to work with a new generation of partners that are not wholly dependent on aid.

At the same time, decision makers need to know who the pacesetters are.

The Food Security and Nutrition Solutions Index is designed to close that visibility gap.

Inclusion does not guarantee funding from the U.S. State Department or any other donor institution. But as funders are actively landscaping new potential partners to work with – being visible right now matters.

Here’s why food systems builders should consider applying:

• We will publish the names and mission statements of selected organizations, creating a curated list of top innovators in food security and nutrition.

• We’ll share the Index with policymakers and funders actively seeking scalable food systems solutions.

• When policymakers and donors ask for our help to meet the next generation of food security and nutrition-focused organizations, we’ll turn first to organizations on this Index.

See our most recent Solutions Index: Health Edition to see how we’re highlighting leading health sector innovators.

If you’re a food systems innovator, click here to apply.

What we’re looking for

The Food Security and Nutrition Solutions Index will spotlight organizations operating across five core food system categories:

• Agricultural productivity, inputs, and farmer livelihoods (e.g., smallholder farmer support, improved seeds and climate-appropriate inputs, soil health, crop resilience, mechanization, extension services, on-farm value addition)

• Nutrition, school feeding, and malnutrition (e.g., prevention and treatment of acute and chronic malnutrition, fortified foods, maternal and child nutrition, school feeding programs, community-based nutrition delivery models)

• Food supply chains, storage, and distribution (e.g., post-harvest loss reduction, cold chains, logistics, aggregation, wholesale platforms, last-mile distribution models)

• Market access, finance, and risk mitigation (e.g., offtake models, buyer linkages, embedded finance, input financing, insurance, blended finance structures, public-private procurement models)

• Digital and data-enabled food systems (e.g., farmer platforms, pricing transparency, traceability, advisory tools, payments infrastructure, data systems supporting targeting and system coordination)

Organizations will be evaluated based on:

• Demonstrated impact and measurable outcomes

• Organizational maturity and absorptive capacity

• Financial sustainability and revenue diversification

• Local endorsement and country alignment

• Clear pathway to scaling cost-effectively

We welcome applications from those fixing broken market systems or serving acute humanitarian zones. As noted, we will calibrate our financial sustainability criteria to reflect these unique operating contexts.

Click here to apply.

Expert Review Committee

To bring independence and expertise to the review process, an expert review committee will review all applying organizations:

• John R. Tyson, Board Member and Strategy Committee Chair, Tyson Foods

• Amit Paley, CEO of the Malnutrition Advocacy Fund and President for Global Advocacy and Philanthropy, Eleanor Crook Foundation

• Sam Thevasagayam, Director, Livestock Systems, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

• Euler Bropleh, Founder & Managing Partner, VestedWorld

All individuals are advising in their personal capacities.

How to participate

If you are building a scalable food system solution and want to be considered for inclusion in the Solutions Index, please complete our intake form by Monday, March 9 at 23:59 Pacific Time.

We strongly encourage organizations with demonstrated traction and clear scaling pathways to apply.

If you have questions about the process, please reach out to us at hello [at] unlockaid.org.

The global conversation on food security and nutrition solutions is shifting. Countries, donors, and investors are increasingly looking for a new generation of innovators to work with.

The Food Security and Nutrition Solutions Index exists to highlight leading innovators building the future.

Apply today. Click here.

To Progress,
Unlock Aid

Since September 2021, we’ve focused on one problem: connecting public funding with proven, cost-effective solutions that are endorsed by and accountable to the communities they serve.

Over the last two decades, a new generation of social innovators has emerged. These organizations have earned the trust of local governments, built sustainable business models, and proven they can deliver results without depending on any single funder.

Yet legacy aid systems have too often locked them out. Too much funding has historically flowed through top-down, projectized models built for a different era that centered around donors’ needs. This approach has limited competition and slowed progress towards delivering long-lasting, durable results.

But change may be underway. Countries are demanding new approaches via initiatives like the Accra Reset. Many donors are following suit. Last week, Gavi announced a $300M Scale-Up Facility to bring proven innovations in vaccine delivery to greater scale.

2026 will be a defining year.

Countries across every continent are making major investments in supply chains, digital infrastructure, and job creation. Countries like the United States are set to invest billions of dollars in global health through dozens of bilateral country-to-country health agreements.

How that capital is directed will shape which systems endure and who delivers results in the years ahead.

Decision makers want partners who can help them build systems that last. Our goal this year: connect public resources with the innovators best positioned to deliver.

As we begin 2026, we’re holding ourselves accountable to three goals:

1. Unlocking capital for proven innovators.
   As donors and countries deploy capital in new ways, we’ll work to direct significant public funding toward organizations with demonstrated performance and scalable models.

2. Making innovation the default.
   As countries take greater control of their own funding priorities, traditional donors must evolve their roles. They can do this by investing in innovations that generate breakthroughs and bring down costs for everyone, creating collective gains no single country could achieve alone.

3. Shaping the future.
   In an era of tightening budgets, countries and donors need to know who to fund. Building on our Solutions Index: Health Edition, we will launch new indices for food security, nutrition, education, and water. We are building a pre-vetted menu of scalable solutions so funders can invest with confidence.

The world in 2026 looks very different than any year before. Countries and donors are increasingly looking for partners who can deliver faster, cheaper, and better while building systems that last.

This is a critical year for social innovators – and for the institutions that fund them.

Thank you to the partners, funders, and advocates who continue this work with us Together, 2026 is the year we translate years of advocacy into concrete results.

To Progress,
Unlock Aid

Dear Unlock Aid community,

This year marked a turning point for the global development ecosystem. Long-standing structures shifted, familiar pathways narrowed, and many organizations were forced to make difficult decisions under significant constraints, with real impacts for the communities they serve. For many, it was an unsettling year. But it was also a clarifying one.

Since our founding in late 2021, we’ve spent the past four years proposing new models for U.S. investments in global development.

Our focus has always been to ensure that the world’s leading global development institutions are set up to build a “Beyond Aid” future alongside a new generation of organizations already solving real problems. We’ve advanced approaches that treat countries as true partners in shaping their own futures, pay for outcomes, prioritize long-term financial sustainability, leverage innovation, and bring proven, cost-effective solutions to scale for the world’s hardest challenges.

In 2025, the question stopped being whether the system would change. It became who would be ready to lead what comes next.

As we close out this year and look to the next, we’re sharing Unlock Aid Wrapped, a curated collection of work from 2025 that captures this inflection point and the momentum we’re building toward the future.

To Progress,
Team Unlock Aid

Responding to the Moment

Launching a New Standard for U.S. Global Engagement

In early 2025, we published Aid Reimagined: The New American Foreign Partnership Standard – a blueprint for how donors and especially the U.S. government should work differently, building on our work over the past four years. We used this framework to launch an updated policy agenda for the new administration.

Read the article.

How We Built a $2 Million Bridge Fund

After launching the Foreign Aid Bridge Fund to provide immediate assistance to high-impact, frontline organizations affected by cuts in early 2025, we wrote this behind-the-scenes look at what it took to launch a rapid-response, flexible fund within just a few weeks while larger emergency funds were still taking shape.

Read the article.

Releasing $14 Billion: Our Campaign to Unlock Lifesaving Funds

We launched a campaign for the U.S. government to release $14B in already-approved health funds, but to deploy them differently than before – by paying for results to locally-endorsed, frontline solutions. We ran targeted ads across 14 key states, placed a full-page ad in the Miami Herald, and mobilized thousands of phone calls to lawmakers. We also published an illustrative RFP showing how the State Department could stand up a $1B Pay-for-Results Health Fund to rapidly deploy funding.

Read the article.

It’s Time to Move Beyond Aid: Washington, D.C. Recap

On the 100th day of the new administration, we brought dozens of coalition partners to Capitol Hill for a day of action with the African Diaspora Network. Our shared goal: reimagine the future of U.S. global engagement – Beyond Aid. One lawmaker told us our proposals were a “breath of fresh air.”

Read the article.

Shaping What Comes Next

Reimagining America’s Global Development Approach

We launched ReimagineAid.org – an effort that brought together more than 20 experts and 600 participants to rank-vote 30+ proposals to modernize U.S. international investing. We used these results to update our broader policy agenda to influence proposals at the State Department and on Capitol Hill.

Read the article.

The Builders Report: What We Learned

We surveyed 50+ social innovators, who told us they had largely weathered big shifts in development because they had built diversified revenue models. The report captures recommendations to scale proven approaches with a new generation of innovative partners.

Read the article.

NYT Opinion: It’s Time to Reimagine Aid

A New York Times opinion piece argued that foreign aid as it existed is over and calls for more cost-effective, financially sustainable, and locally-driven models, citing Unlock Aid’s work.

Other media, including an op-ed in Fox News by our policy director, also proposed new approaches. The Global Prosperity Institute wrote, “Unlock Aid has done more thinking than most about Day Zero for the aid world,” drawing parallels between our work and what U.S. policy groups now call the “abundance agenda.” In outlets like the Washington Post and in our own media, we corrected the record when influencers mischaracterized data about U.S. foreign aid, such as the share of funding that reaches local partners.

Read the NYT article.

New System Starts to Take Shape

The State Department’s $150M Move: What It Means

The State Department announced its new approach to U.S. global health, including areas we’ve long called for: country-to-country agreements, leveraging innovation, and prioritizing financial sustainability. One of the State Department’s first major announcements was a $150 million pay-for-results partnership with Zipline to modernize health supply chains across five African countries, serving 130 million people.

Read the article.

Introducing the Solutions Index: Health Supply Chain Edition

As the State Department and other donors look for new partners, we launched the Solutions Index to give funders visibility into organizations already delivering results at scale. Our inaugural edition highlighted 33 leading innovators in global health supply chains, selected by an expert panel out of more than 130 applications. Future editions will cover food security, water and sanitation, education, and additional health verticals.

Read the article.

Looking Ahead

The old system isn’t coming back. But what replaces it is still being built. In 2026, we’ll continue working to ensure that what comes next is built on the principles we’ve been advancing from the start: local ownership and country sovereignty, financial sustainability, innovation, and paying for results. Thank you for being part of this work.

Happy New Year from everyone at Unlock Aid.

Today, we’re proud to announce the inaugural Unlock Aid Solutions Index, a curated directory of proven, pacesetting organizations tackling some of the world’s hardest development challenges.

Our first edition highlights 33 leading innovators in global health supply chains, spanning drug procurement, logistics and distribution, data and analytics, and community health delivery.

Why we’re launching the Solutions Index

Over the past decade, a new generation of organizations has emerged, combining measurable impact with financially sustainable business models. These innovators work through governments and local markets, allowing them to scale faster, operate more cost-effectively, and deliver stronger results than many traditional approaches.

Yet because most of these organizations emerged outside the conventional “aid” system, many have remained largely invisible to major donors.

The Solutions Index is designed to change that.

By giving donors, governments, philanthropists, and investors visibility into organizations that are already delivering impact at scale, our goal is to lower the barriers to partnering with a new category of proven solutions.

When these barrier-breaking innovators succeed, they show how new models can deliver high-impact results more sustainably and at lower cost. This will unlock opportunity not just for individual organizations and the communities they serve, but for the broader social innovation ecosystem.

This moment matters. The global development system is undergoing a once-in-a-generation shift. The future of development will not be defined just by how much money flows, but by who we work with – and whether we back organizations that embed evidence, sustainability, and local buy-in into their approach to impact.

Introducing Launch of the Health Solutions Index

Our inaugural Solutions Index focuses on global health supply chains, one of the most foundational pillars of national health systems.

Supply chains determine:

• Whether clinics receive medicines on time

• Whether blood, oxygen, and essential drugs reach the last mile

• Whether diagnostics arrive when providers need them

• Whether governments can respond effectively to emergencies

After a competitive review process, our Expert Review Committee selected 33 organizations from more than 130 applications working across healthcare delivery and logistics for inclusion in our inaugural Solutions Index.

Reviewers evaluated organizations across criteria including:

• Alignment with health system priorities and demonstrated impact

• Organizational maturity and absorptive capacity

• Financial sustainability, revenue diversification, and cost-effectiveness

• Local endorsement and local buy-in

• Commitment to population and patient safety

→ Click here to see the inaugural cohort of Solutions Index organizations.

→ Click here to see original call for applications and evaluation framework.

Our Gratitude to the Expert Review Committee

This Index would not exist without the time, rigor, and expertise of our Expert Review Committee. Their scoring, debate, and deep knowledge of global health markets shaped every aspect of this inaugural edition.

Thank you specifically to:

• Prashant Yadav, Review Committee Chair, Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations; global health supply chain expert

• Krista Donaldson, Director of Innovation to Impact, Stanford University Mussallem Center for Biodesign

• Morayor Essieh, Health Director, Corporate Council on Africa

• Josh Ghaim, Managing Director of Ignite Venture Studio; Chair of the African Diaspora Network; former CTO of Johnson & Johnson Consumer

What Comes Next

This edition of the Solutions Index is just the beginning.

Early in the new year, we will release additional editions of the Solutions Index, with future calls for proposals focused on:

• Food security and nutrition

• Water, sanitation, and hygiene

• Education and economic development

• Additional health verticals beyond supply chains

The Beyond-Aid Future Is Here

The past year has made one thing clear: countries want solutions that last.

Our hope is that the Solutions Index becomes a practical tool to help the world transition from a system defined by aid and crisis response to one built on partnership, innovation, and long-term sustainability.

To the organizations selected: congratulations.
To the innovators building what comes next: we look forward to working with you.
And to the policymakers and donors searching for a better path forward: this is where to start.

To Progress,
Unlock Aid

We have big news, and it comes at a pivotal moment. The State Department will provide a $150,000,000 pay-for-results grant to work with Zipline in five countries over the next three years to modernize health supply chains. The agreement – supporting health systems in Africa, including Rwanda, Nigeria, Kenya, and Côte d’Ivoire, serving up to 130 million people – represents one of the first major U.S. global health commitments since the release of the agency’s new global health strategy. Zipline is one of Unlock Aid’s founding organizations.

Jeremy Lewin, undersecretary of state for foreign assistance, said, “This partnership is an example of the innovative, results-driven partnership at the core of the America First foreign assistance agenda.”

Zipline’s work is grounded in a simple idea: lifesaving medical products should reach patients in minutes, not hours or days. By using drone technology to deliver blood, medicines, vaccines, and other health products to last-mile communities, Zipline has transformed health outcomes where it operates. For example:

• University of Pennsylvania researchers found that Zipline’s interventions reduced maternal mortality by 51% at hospitals serviced by Zipline in Rwanda.

• IDInsight found that Zipline’s integration increased the diversity of stocked medical products, reduced days without essential supplies and vaccines, and reduced the number of patients turned away due to stockouts.

• A study published in Vaccine found that immunization rates increased by 13–37 percentage points in Zipline-serviced districts in Ghana.

As part of the agreement, the U.S. government will cover the upfront infrastructure costs, such as building new “nests” to launch drones, and will release funds after countries commit to sustaining ongoing operations, with further payments tied to results. The goal is to build the infrastructure now so that, as unit costs fall, domestic budgets – not donors – carry the model forward over time. Countries like Rwanda and Nigeria already pay for Zipline through their national budgets, Rwanda making its first such investment nearly a decade ago. This agreement now provides additional capital to scale that impact.

The agreement also represents one of the first real signals that the system we’ve been pushing for is starting to take shape. Our recent Builders Report, drawing on input from more than 50 social innovators, makes clear that a new generation of organizations has already proven high-impact, financially sustainable, scalable models – many built outside the traditional aid ecosystem. The moment now is to align public resources with what’s already proven to work.

A bigger opportunity

This moment is exciting – and it’s also bigger than Zipline alone. This investment signals an appetite to fund the kind of evidence-backed, cost-effective, and financially-sustainable innovation that countries need now, especially amid major shifts in global development.

That’s why we’re launching the Solutions Index: to ensure funders can quickly identify the most impactful innovations ready for scale right now. The organizations we’ll feature operate models that are high-impact, scalable, financially sustainable, and accountable to the countries they serve.

While inclusion in the Index does not guarantee funding from the State Department or any other institution, visibility matters right now, especially as bilateral and multilateral donors, national governments, philanthropies, and investors look for proven partners.

(If you’re a health-sector innovator, submit your organization for the Solutions Index: Health Edition by December 2.)

Other major developments

The news of this $150 million investment also comes alongside three other significant global health announcements made by the U.S. State Department in recent weeks:

1. The United States will contribute $4.6 billion to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.

The Global Fund has been one of the most effective vehicles for reducing deaths from HIV, TB, and malaria over the past two decades, and this commitment represents a major down payment toward sustaining that progress.

2. The State Department released its new America First global health strategy.

Importantly, the strategy reflects many of the recommendations we developed after running ReimagineAid.org, where more than 20 experts and 600 participants rank-voted the reforms most needed to modernize U.S. international investing. We published the resulting summary of recommendations earlier this year.

The global health strategy commits to time-bound investments to end HIV, malaria, TB, and polio; strengthen pandemic preparedness; and adopt a more transparent, results-driven approach. More specifically, we support the strategy’s calls for:

• Shifting more to country-to-country agreements, private-sector partnerships, and collaboration with locally-embedded faith communities and frontline health providers

• Increasing investments in innovation, science, and technology

• Breaking down funding silos between disease programs

• Paying for results using clear, verifiable metrics

• Investing in community health and frontline workers

• Accelerating transitions to locally-owned health systems

3. The State Department is partnering with Gilead to expand access to lenacapavir.

Lenacapavir requires only two injections per year and reduces HIV transmission risk by nearly 99%. Scaled rapidly and responsibly, this “breakthrough” drug could change the trajectory of the HIV epidemic. The State Department has committed investments to reach up to 2 million people with the drug by 2028.

But as with any new medical innovation, the hardest part often isn’t discovery alone – it’s also ensuring that lifesaving treatments actually reach the most vulnerable, hardest-to-access communities. That’s why investments in modern global health logistics and delivery systems are now just as critical as the drug itself.

Where this leaves us

Taken together, these developments signal meaningful, positive movement during a year of profound transition. Institutions are being reshaped, roles are shifting, and new models are emerging quickly. Our task, alongside our community, is to make sure these shifts translate into durable, measurable health gains – and that investments can be designed and sustained by the communities they’re meant to serve.

To Progress,
Unlock Aid

P.S. If you’re building a health innovation ready for scale, we encourage you to apply to the Solutions Index: Health Edition by December 2.

If you work in global health or health supply chains, this message is for you. Our final call for submissions to the Solutions Index: Health Edition closes on December 2. Organizations that filled out our original Solutions Index intake form (released in August) should complete this form as it includes supplementary questions not included in the original (and we provide the option to skip any duplicative questions).

Eligibility is open to any innovator working on health issues. Potential for inclusion is not restricted just to entities affiliated with Unlock Aid. We’ll publish the health edition of the Solutions Index before the end of the year.

Health innovators seeking consideration should complete our intake form by December 2, 2025.

Launching the Solutions Index: Some Background

In August, we announced we would soon launch a Solutions Index to identify proven, high-impact solutions that governments and funders can work with today to deliver measurable results for millions of people. Since then, more than 100 organizations have submitted information for possible inclusion.

The purpose of the Index is simple: to spotlight organizations that have financially sustainable business models, locally endorsed, and able to deliver impact more cost-effectively than traditional aid models. These are the partners that best positioned to help countries improve development outcomes without relying on unpredictable aid cycles.

In mid-December, we’ll release the first edition of the Solutions Index, focused initially on publishing a list of proven innovators working in global health and global health supply chains. Early next year, we’ll release future editions focused on other sectors, including food security, agriculture and nutrition; clean water access; education; and livelihoods and economic development.

Why this matters

Across the world, donors, governments, and investors are actively searching for the next generation of partners: groups that can deliver measurable results, strengthen local markets, and scale sustainably.

At the same time, the global aid architecture is shifting. In September, the U.S. State Department announced its new America First Global Health Strategy, outlining a new approach to funding priorities in global health, emphasizing an increased focus on country-to-country agreements, commercial diplomacy, and investments in innovation.

As governments and markets take on services previously funded by donors, many of the most effective, financially sustainable organizations remain invisible to decision makers. Policymakers have repeatedly asked us for examples of innovative, cost-effective organizations they should be meeting, especially those that historically have not partnered with major bilateral and international donors, such as the U.S. government.

The Solutions Index is designed to close a visibility gap

While inclusion in the Index does not guarantee funding from the U.S. State Department or any other institution, it does shape the landscape. Many funders are beginning landscaping exercises to identify new, high-impact partners. Being visible at the right moment matters.

We will make public the names and mission statements of organizations selected in the Solutions Index, as well as share the Index with funders who we know are actively looking for new partners.

If you are a health-focused social innovator, you should fill out this intake form by December 2 as we’ll be using the Solutions Index to determine which organizations to highlight.

Our process and what we’re looking for

For this first edition of the Solutions Index, we’ll be publishing a list of proven, high-impact organizations operating in one or more of the following global health and health supply chain verticals:

• Data: collection, integration, interoperability, analysis, management

• Distribution & Delivery: transportation, logistics, last-mile delivery, pharmacy distribution

• Laboratory & Diagnostics: diagnostics, lab analytics, lab equipment

• Product Manufacturing: local drug production, device manufacturing

• Community Health: CHW networks, primary healthcare delivery

• Procurement & Sourcing: drug procurement, tender management, financing

To bring independence and expertise to the review and decision-making, we’ve convened an expert Review Committee that includes:

• Prashant Yadav, Review Committee Chair, Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations; global health supply chain expert

• Krista Donaldson, Director of Innovation to Impact, Stanford University Mussallem Center for Biodesign

• Morayor Essieh, Health Director, Corporate Council on Africa

• Josh Ghaim, Managing Director of Ignite Venture Studio; Chair of the African Diaspora Network; former CTO of Johnson & Johnson Consumer

The committee will evaluate organizations using the following criteria:

• Organizational alignment with health goals and demonstrated impact

• Organizational maturity and absorptive capacity

• Business model financial sustainability, revenue diversification, and cost effectiveness

• Local endorsement and local buy-in

• Commitment to population and patient safety

All individuals are advising in their personal capacities.

How to participate

If you’re a health-sector innovator and you’d like to be considered for inclusion in this first edition of the Solutions Index, please complete this intake form by December 2. We’ll publish the first edition of this Index before the end of the year.

We are especially interested in solutions with clear pathways to absorbing $5M–$50M+ in additional funding to deliver measurable results, including through results-based funding arrangements.

Our December 2 deadline is firm, so don’t wait. Submit your data today. If you have any question about this process, please reach out to us at hello [at] unlockaid.org.

To Progress,
Unlock Aid

P.S. If you filled out the August call for submissions, we still ask that you complete this updated form as the Review Committee requires supplementary information that was not included in our initial intake form. We’ve provided an option that will enable you to skip any questions you’ve already answered.

P.P.S. We’ve pasted below the questions we include in our intake form to help you assess if your organization might be a good fit for inclusion in the Solutions Index: Health Edition.

Intake Questions for Health-Focused Organizations Seeking Consideration in Solutions Index

Organizational Data

1. Are you for profit, nonprofit, or something else?
   Options: Nonprofit, For profit, Other:

2. Please indicate all countries where you presently operate (as of December 2025):

3. Please indicate where you could potentially operate within 12-months from today with sufficient resources:

4. Please check which category best describes your primary business activity (we understand organizations may perform more than one function, please select which category best describes your primary business category):

   1. Data (e.g. collection, integration, interoperability, analysis, data management, etc.)

   2. Distribution/Delivery (e.g. transportation, logistics, direct-to-consumer, pharmacy distribution networks, etc.)

   3. Laboratory/Diagnostics (e.g. lab analysis, lab equipment, etc.)

   4. Drug/Product Manufacturing (e.g. device manufacturing, drug production, etc.)

   5. Community Health (e.g. CHW networks, primary healthcare delivery, etc.)

   6. Procurement & Sourcing (e.g. drug procurement, financing, tender management, etc.)

   7. Other: _________________________

5. What does your organization do? (Note: If selected for inclusion in the Solutions Index, we will use this text to describe you. Maximum 50 words)

Organizational Alignment with Health Goals

6. What is your strategy for reaching your intended users or population segments? (Please list 3-4 bullets, Maximum 50 words.)

7. Impact assessment: What are your 1-2 key metrics? How do you collect data and/or monitor your impact? (Please list 3-4 bullets, Maximum 50 words.)

8. Are there credible indicators that your approach can achieve these sustained results at scale? (Maximum 50 words.)

9. What evidence do you have of your innovation’s effectiveness? (Check all that apply)

   1. Pilot results

   2. Peer-reviewed publications

   3. Independent evaluation

   4. User testimonials

   5. Operational data

   6. Cost-effectiveness analysis

   7. Other: _______________

10. How is your approach innovative or technology-enabled in a way that enhances efficiency and/or reach? (Maximum 50 words)

Organizational Maturity

11. Please describe your organization’s team leadership and their relevant experience leading sustainable businesses/organizations in low- and middle-income settings. (Please list 3-4 bullets, Maximum 50 words.)

12. For any specific innovation or solution you sell/build (e.g. software, hardware, product), do you hold the intellectual property and/or licenses/rights to operate?
    If No, please explain why:

13. Please indicate your approximate total operating budget in 2024?
    Options: Below 1M; 1M-3M; 3M-10M; 10M-20M; 20M-100M; 100M+

14. What systems, processes, and partnerships do you have that would enable you to scale to additional geographies/use cases within 2–3 years? (Please list 3-4 bullets, Maximum 50 words.)

Business Model Financial Sustainability

15. Who are your top 3 funders/investors right now? Would receiving additional funds unlock any other investment? (Maximum 50 words.)

16. How does your unit cost change at scale? If your solution has historically relied in part or in full on donor or philanthropic funding, in what way can a donor provide one-time catalytic funding to make your solution more accessible to country governments or local markets (e.g. up-front investments enable you to bring down costs over time, expand access to new markets that can sustain solution, etc.)? (Maximum 50 words)

17. If your organization can be sustained over the long-term from non-donor sources of revenue, please explain how. For example, you may operate a direct-to-consumer business model, have partnerships with local commercial partners, or may be included within national/local health budgets.
    (Maximum 50 words)

18. What are your primary revenue sources? (Check all that apply)

    1. Local government grants/contracts

    2. Bilateral/international donor grants/contracts

    3. Philanthropic funding

    4. Earned revenue/sales

    5. Impact investment

    6. Other: _______________

19. Approximately what percentage of your budget comes from earned revenue or contracts with local governments/markets (versus philanthropic grants/donations/donor funding)?

Local Endorsement / Local Buy-In

20. What local and/or commercial partnerships do you currently have in place? For example, please explain any credible distribution or scaling partnership that are ready to go with a commitment from a ministry of health, memoranda of understanding with local actors, large company that wants to partner, a local distributor with regional reach, etc. (Maximum 50 words)

21. To what extent is your model aligned, or included in national or regional health frameworks? Please explain or write N/A if not applicable. (Maximum 50 words)

Population Safety

22. If you are developing or distributing a product, what regulatory clearance do you have? If you are pre-market what is your regulatory pathway and strategy? Please explain or write N/A if not applicable. (Maximum 50 words)

23. Does your organization have the following? (Check all that apply)

    1. Chief Medical Officer or clinical leadership

    2. Ethics review board approval

    3. Data security and privacy protocols (HIPAA, GDPR, or local equivalent)

    4. Adverse event reporting systems

    5. Quality assurance processes

    6. Patient safety training programs

The 2025 aid freeze did not just expose the weaknesses of the old system. It also highlighted where we must focus support to build what comes next.

This summer, Unlock Aid interviewed more than 50+ social entrepreneurs, their funders, and ecosystem partners to understand how the world’s most resilient innovators are navigating dramatic shifts to international assistance. Today, we’re releasing our State of Builders Report, which summarizes what we learned. The report also includes recommendations for funders and policymakers on where we go from here.

The first opportunity in decades. Despite the challenges, disruptions to international assistance now creates the first real opportunity in decades to institutionalize a new model for global development, one rooted in evidence for impact, financial sustainability, and local leadership. What comes next will determine whether we rebuild what broke or invest in what works.

Click here to download the report and read the State of the Builders Report in full.

Here are some of the report highlights:

What We Heard

• Social Entrepreneurs Were Able to Withstand (and Even Thrive) During This Moment Because They Had Built Diversified Revenue Models
  When freezes to U.S. international assistance hit in early 2025, many of the aid industry’s largest implementers collapsed or significantly downsized their operations. This had a direct impact on the communities they served, and exposed the dangers of building systems and organizations that relied on a single donor.
  
  Meanwhile, 82% of the social entrepreneurs we interviewed experienced zero or minimal impact. This is because they’d deliberately built multiple funding streams over many years with no single source of revenue typically exceeding 30%. None built business models dependent on aid. Even the 18% that reported significant impacts were all able to bounce back by tapping into other revenue sources.
  
  Nearly one-third of the organizations we spoke to reported they even saw their revenues increase this year, especially as local governments, philanthropies, and markets looked for alternative service providers in the wake of program closures.
  
  *Note The findings from this report reflect primarily the experiences of organizations in relatively stable environments. Its conclusions should not be applied to fragile states or conflict zones, where weaker private markets and state capacity create more dependence on international funding.
  

• Social Entrepreneurs Are Doubling Down on Revenue Pathways Beyond Aid
  Rather than pursuing aid dollars post-freeze, or trying to figure out how to become the “new” aid industry players, builders told us they are accelerating their direct-to-government relationships, investing more in generating commercial revenue, and exploring new and nontraditional sources of income, such as tapping into donor advised funds (DAFs), diaspora investments, sovereign wealth funds, and working more with regional multilateral banks.
  

• Local Governments Are Increasingly Turning to Them.
  When U.S.-funded aid contractors withdrew, many interviewees reported that local governments increasingly turned to social entrepreneurs that had been doing vital work all along, but had often been ignored by traditional implementers, or that had had their work buried deep within subcontracting arrangements. Now social entrepreneurs were able to have much more direct relationships with the local governments they served.
  

• Entrepreneurs Shared Concerns About Secondary Effects of Aid Cuts.
  While most of the social entrepreneurs we interviewed said they experienced only minimal direct impacts, many interviewees shared concerns about the potential secondary effects of aid cuts, especially in highly aid-dependent and debt-distressed countries. Interviewees said that as governments reallocated budgets to absorb previously-funded services, that could lead to cuts in other sectors.
  

• Social Entrepreneurs Report Mixed Feelings About Traditional Philanthropy.
  Entrepreneurs spoke favorably about smaller family foundations that backstopped organizations directly or via emergency funds amid major disruptions to international assistance earlier in the year. However, they also noted that traditional philanthropy has largely closed ranks around their existing grantees, with limited appetite for funding new solutions, a frustration for innovators with proven models ready to scale.
  

• Optimism and Opportunity to Reset the System.
  Despite challenges, entrepreneurs expressed genuine optimism about the future. They said the traditional aid model’s flaws – expensive middlemen, parallel systems, financially unsustainable projects, innovation blocked by rigid procurement – have become undeniable in the wake of the cuts. Builders believe they can deliver 60%-70% of legacy aid’s impact at 10%-20% of the cost. As one African entrepreneur noted: “The shift from dependence to ownership, from charity to investment, from projects to systems – that’s what gives entrepreneurs hope.”

Click here to download the report and read the State of the Builders Report in full.

Where Do We Go From Here?

• Social Entrepreneurs Want to Partner with the U.S. Government, But on New Terms.
  Innovators said they remained open to American engagement but seek direct partnerships designed with local governments and that were more responsive to local priorities. Entrepreneurs said they wanted jolts of catalytic funding to address the “Missing Middle” or “Valley of Death” to build sustainable business models rather than pursuing funding arrangements that created long-term dependency. They’re asking for a “build fast, try new things” approach: listen to what countries need, support proven organizations on the ground, measure systemic change, and invest in catalytic innovation.
  

• What Funders Can Do.
  Social entrepreneurs said major institutional funders deploying $50-$100M+ annually should shift from funding intermediaries to backing proven solutions directly through outcomes-based contracts, long-term commitments (5-10 years), and flexible funding that allows adaptation to local contexts. Smaller philanthropic foundations should provide risk-tolerant funds for innovation, patient capital for pilots, technical assistance for R&D, and bridge funding for organizations transitioning between models. All funders should support the enabling ecosystem: advocacy, matchmaking, narrative shifts, knowledge sharing, and talent development. These functions often lack funding but determine whether innovations scale or remain boutique, and can influence the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem writ large.

Click here to download the report and read the State of the Builders Report in full.

Introducing the Solutions Index

The social innovator ecosystem didn’t get built overnight. Builders have been investing in new models for the past twenty years, bolstered by support from a number of forward-leaning philanthropies and impact investors. The State of the Builders Report also includes a chronology of where we came – and where we can go from here.

Now, as major funders like the State Department redesign their approaches, they’re searching for proven actors outside of their traditional, legacy approaches – organizations delivering cost-effective and measurable results, and with financially sustainable models.

That’s why, as a follow up to the State of the Builders Report, we’re soon to launch the Solutions Index: a public, easy-to-use resource cataloging proven global development solutions with capacity to absorb significant scale-up funding. Our goal for the Solutions Index will be to help governments, investors, and philanthropists quickly identify high-impact, cost-effective, and scale-ready partners.

We’ve already received nearly 100 submissions and our first review committee is set to meet this week. If your organization is a high-impact social innovator with a proven record of results, financial sustainability, and government or market validation, make sure you nominate yourself this week.

Click here to learn more about the Solutions Index and to nominate your organization.

The builders are ready. The models are proven. The need is urgent. Read the State of the Builders Report to see where we need to go from here.

To Progress,
Unlock Aid

We’re going to cut to the chase: we need your help.

Unlock Aid is facing a critical $150,000 $70,000 funding gap that we must close by the end of the year to keep fighting for you and the evidence-based social entrepreneur community.

Update: We started this fundraising campaign privately with a small network of supporters with a goal of raising $150,000. We’ve already raised half that amount.

👉 Click here to make a contribution.

Why this matters

Global development is undergoing a once-in-a-generation restructuring. Decisions made in the next few months will shape who receives future funding, how those dollars flow, and what problems they’re designed to solve.

Over the past two decades, impact investors and venture philanthropists have seeded a new generation of highly effective organizations tackling the world’s toughest challenges. They’re rooted in their communities and have built sustainable business models beyond aid. Hundreds are part of the Unlock Aid coalition.

But without a seat at the table in Washington, DC and other decision-making hubs, these organizations risk being overlooked in favor of other more entrenched players.

That’s why advocacy isn’t a “nice to have.” It’s the only way to make sure these proven innovators get the attention and the funding they deserve.

Why now

• Last year, many major funders were reluctant to fund advocacy work because they were in “wait and see” mode around the U.S. elections.

• This year, many funders are in “wait and see” mode again because they want to see how everything plays out amid a shifting aid landscape at major global development donors like the U.S. State Department, UK government, and multilateral development banks.

But this is exactly the time we need to engage. Decisions are being made right now.

If we don’t act now, we’ll miss the window to shape the next decade of global development spending.

What we’ll do with your support

With this funding, we will:

• Build the Solutions Index, a vetted list of the world’s most effective organizations, drawing on third-party impact lists, market research, and evidence of real results and business model sustainability.

• Put those vetted Solutions in front of decision-makers, including the U.S. State Department, national governments, multilateral banks, philanthropists, and impact investors, so that funding flows to organizations that actually deliver.

Our goal is to channel hundreds of millions of dollars in new funding to these organizations by year’s end.

👉 Make your contribution today.

How we’ll hold ourselves accountable

Amid this shifting landscape, many funders, including the U.S. State Department, are already asking us for examples of new actors that merit support.

By the end of the year, we’ll measure progress by one standard: are more dollars flowing to the innovators on the Solutions Index?

If yes, we’ll double down. If not, we’ll reassess. Unlock Aid has never raised money in perpetuity. We only ask for support when we see a credible path to impact.

How we fund ourselves

We raise money from philanthropic funders, investors, and individual donors who believe in this fight.

We cannot rely on social entrepreneurs alone to financially support our work, who are already cash-strapped and especially so this year during global pull back among major funders.

That’s why this appeal is those with resources to help us build a system where the best solutions finally get a fair shot.

👉 Make your contribution today.

What we’ve done already

In the past seven months, we’ve stepped up for the social entrepreneur community:

• Raised ~$2.1 million for the Foreign Aid Bridge Fund, supporting more than 40 organizations hit by the U.S. foreign aid freeze (and taking no fees ourselves).

• Provided free legal support to more than 200 organizations navigating stop-work orders.

• Launched a digital and TV campaign to protect funding for life-saving programs like PEPFAR.

Now we’re asking for your help. This is our moment to shape the future.

👉 Will you join us? Make your contribution today.

To progress,
Unlock Aid

P.S. We raise a mix of tax-deductible contributions to fund activities like research, narrative shift work, and to support our engagement with think tanks, multilateral development banks, global funds, philanthropy, and other funders. We also raise non-tax-deductible contributions to enable us do things like talk to U.S. lawmakers. Click here to make a tax-deductible donation through Panorama Global, a 501c3, or click here to get in touch to make a non-tax-deductible contribution.

We’re building a Solutions Index. We need you to tell us what kind of results your organization could deliver if you received $5M, $10M, or $20M+ in new funding today. This isn’t theoretical, it’s real.

U.S. foreign aid is here to stay, and the new Administration wants to know who they should be working with.

Click here to fill out this short form.

Why does this matter? Two reasons:

1. The U.S. will still be a major global development funder.

Amid the news of the functional dissolution of USAID, funding recissions, and the stop-work orders, it’s easy to miss the news that the United States will remain a dominant global development funder — and likely still the world’s largest. The House Appropriations Committee just passed a foreign aid budget at roughly 80% of last year’s levels, with line-item support for global health, food security, humanitarian assistance, and other development priorities. The Senate is expected to pass something similar.

During a recent interview with the New York Times, senior State Department official Jeremy Lewin said that the U.S. will continue funding for many traditional development areas, including PEPFAR, tuberculosis, and malaria. Investments to curb malaria remain, in his words, “one of the lowest-cost, highest-return humanitarian investments we can make.” He also said, “We think we can meet President Trump’s goal of ending mother-to-child HIV transmission by the time he leaves office.”

In May, the Administration also released its Africa Commercialization Strategy, aimed at unlocking private sector and economic growth, and expanding trade partnerships on the continent, including through ramped-up Development Finance Corporation (DFC) investments. Now five years old, the DFC is set to be reauthorized by Congress this year, and we expect it to be a significant player in the Trump Administration’s foreign policy toolkit.

2. The U.S. is looking for new partners.

As funding starts flowing again, the Administration is also actively seeking to work with a new generation of innovative, cost-effective organizations that can deliver measurable results. They’re especially interested to work with groups that have not historically partnered with the U.S. government. Secretary Rubio said during recent testimony that U.S. ambassadors would be tasked with sourcing new deals. Various U.S. officials have asked us for examples of groups they should be meeting.

With new money for global development priorities set to start flowing again soon, policymakers want to know: Who are the non-traditional, more innovative partners the U.S. government can work with right now to deliver results faster, more cost-effectively, and more sustainably than before?

Countries are asking similar questions. As local governments increasingly start to pay for health and other services that were previously funded by the U.S. government, ministers and civil servants want to know who they can work with. So do philanthropists and impact investors. The central question is the same: How do we continue providing essential services in a more cost-effective, financially sustainable way?

That’s Why We’re Launching the Solutions Index

We need to surface the best bets funders can make right now.

The global aid architecture is in the midst of a major restructuring. High-impact organizations that have weathered the past seven months are those with sustainable business models and diversified revenue streams. Many work directly with local governments or through private funding and commercial markets. But because they grew up outside the traditional aid system, they’re virtually unknown to policymakers, precisely the people who now want to work with them.

Our ongoing State of Builders Report research shows one gap clearly: there’s no public, easy-to-use resource that catalogs proven global development solutions with the capacity to absorb significant scale-up funding.

That’s why we’re creating a Solutions Index to fill that gap. It will:

• Help the new Administration, donors, investors, and philanthropists quickly identify high-impact, cost-effective, and scale-ready partners.

• Highlight organizations delivering measurable results with financially sustainable revenue models.

• Showcase groups in demand by local governments, markets, and other local actors, a critical factor for long-term success and financial sustainability.

We’ll be using heuristics to determine which organizations to highlight based on factors such as:

• Identification as a leading firm according to third-party market research reports.

• Recognition by leading innovation and awards programs.

• Recent funding from respected innovation and evidence funders.

• Evidence of business model financial sustainability and absorption capacity.

Who knows? The Solutions Index might even influence how the Gates Foundation spends $200 billion over the next 20 years.

Is Your Organization Ready To Get Involved?

This week, we’re taking the first step by asking interested organizations to fill out this short form, just 4–5 questions:

• What do you do?

• Where do you work and where could you easily expand?

• What measurable results could you deliver with $5M–$20M+ in additional funding? What key metrics would you track (i.e., HIV drugs delivered, homes electrified, Internet access expanded)?

• Who else pays for what you do (local governments, markets, other buyers)?

• Would you agree to results-based funding and transparent reporting of your results?

📍 If your organization can answer these questions, we want to hear from you.
Submit your information here.

We’ll be sharing what we learn with Administration officials and other interested funders soon and on a rolling basis after that, so please respond ASAP. We may eventually launch what we learn as a public-facing database to make this a global good (nothing will be published without your permission).

What Happens Next?

There’s a lot happening right now. Much of it is fast-moving, complex, and often hard to follow.

But one thing is increasingly clear: the United States will remain a dominant global development funder.

From our perspective at Unlock Aid, the most important thing we can do now is get money out the door to high-impact groups in ways that align with our core principles:

• Cost-effective and results-oriented;

• In true partnership with countries and communities;

• With clear, time-bound plans to transition donor funding to sustainable financing sources.

That’s what building sustainable development looks like. We want to hear from those ready to help build the future with us.

To progress,
Unlock Aid

P.S. If you’re interested to be included in our Solutions Index, please make sure to fill out this form.

When the U.S. government froze foreign aid earlier this year, thousands of frontline organizations around the world suddenly found themselves cut off from the resources they needed to deliver life-saving work. There was no roadmap. No fallback plan.

In response, and in collaboration with a number of outstanding partners, we launched the Foreign Aid Bridge Fund.

Today, as we publish our Foreign Aid Bridge Fund Impact Report, we want to pause and recognize what this community accomplished together.

Within one month of the U.S. foreign aid freeze, the Foreign Aid Bridge Fund made its first grant recommendations. Ultimately, 43 organizations across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean received unrestricted grants, averaging around $50,000, to keep urgent work going. In total, we raised just over $2 million dollars from 350+ donors. With no overhead costs and all partners waiving fees, 100% of raised funds went directly to recipients.

A Community Response to Crisis

At Unlock Aid, we often talk about "the doers,” the people and organizations on the front lines who don't wait for perfect conditions. Instead, they move. They adapt. They know that in crisis, action matters more than perfection. The Foreign Aid Bridge Fund was created in that spirit, with extraordinary partners like Panorama Global, Every.org, Smarter Good, and an Investment Committee that made it possible.

When we were preparing to launch, we were asked: "How much have you raised already?" The answer at the time was zero. But we knew someone had to try. So we launched anyway, trusting that if we moved, others would too.

Today we’re proud to release our Foreign Aid Bridge Fund Impact Report, which explains both how we rapidly stood up the Fund and showcases many of the outstanding organizations the Fund supported.

Click here to download the full report.

What We Learned Along the Way

Beyond the dollars raised, this Fund taught us important lessons about responding to crisis:

• Speed over perfection. In moments of crisis, moving fast gives others permission to act. It cuts through “analysis paralysis,” though it also means making difficult choices and knowing that action leads to learning, even when you don't get everything right at first.

• Diversify decision makers. We built an Investment Committee of diverse, community-connected experts who could bridge the gap between donors wanting to know their funds would be put to good use and frontline organizations needing flexible funding. Even with clear criteria, we recognized that "good judgment" is inherently biased, which is why we prioritized recruiting an Investment Committee from a variety of sectors, expertise, and lived experiences.

• Fund the future, not just the crisis. Rather than trying to fill every gap, we invested in frontline organizations with sustainable business models – groups that would outlast the immediate emergency. When you put frontline organizations at the center, you're building resilience, not dependency.

• A playbook for others. We've included guidance in the report on how to set up a similar fund in the event of future emergencies, from creating intake processes to disbursing money. It's a model that others can adapt.

Click here to download the full report

A Better Way Forward

The Foreign Aid Bridge Fund was always meant to be a bridge, not a permanent solution. But it showed what's possible when we put trust in the people doing the work, cut out bureaucracy, and act in alignment with our values.

To every donor, partner, and volunteer who took the leap with us: thank you. We hope this Fund serves not just as a success story, but as a starting point for giving in times of crisis and a signal of how we can do things differently, together, next time.

Read the full Foreign Aid Bridge Fund Impact Report to see what we built together.

To Progress,
Unlock Aid

P.S. If you’d like to get involved with Unlock Aid, including to learn more about our work to shape the future of U.S. international assistance, or to find out how we’re supporting social entrepreneurs as they adapt to work more directly with national and local governments in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, please get in touch! Contact us at hello [at] unlockaid.org, respond to this email, or subscribe to our newsletter.

Subscribe now

Earlier this summer we shared our plans to publish our State of Builders Report. The global operating environment for social innovators, entrepreneurs and frontline organizations has shifted dramatically this year. We want to understand how we can best support your work moving forward.

We’ll use the report to illustrate how how organizations are adapting in light of major disruptions to funding for solutions in global health access, food security, education, livelihoods, and other sectors. Cuts to U.S. international assistance have been the starkest, but many other international funders have pulled back, too.

So far, we've spoken with more than 35 entrepreneurs, funders, and other allied organizations, giving us rich insights on what is working now. We're about to start synthesizing what we've heard into something that's actionable for CEOs, philanthropy, investors, and policymakers.

We want to hear from you.

If you are the CEO or an executive at a for-profit social-benefit corporation, non-profit social enterprise, or other likeminded organization, please fill out this survey by close of business on July 15, 2025. It should take between 5-10 minutes.

Link here: https://forms.gle/aehDEH1NwzVnVGm8A

We're particularly interested to understand:

• How has your organization been affected in the wake of major funding disruptions?

• How can a collective like ours be of most value to you right now?

• Do you perform a high-impact service that is more cost effective and financially sustainable than approaches traditionally supported by aid donors?

We'll be publishing a preview for participants soon. Your feedback will help shape the ways we show up for our community through the rest of 2025 and beyond.

Please complete the survey by July 15, 2025: https://forms.gle/aehDEH1NwzVnVGm8A

A tribute to USAID

We'd be remiss not to acknowledge that last Tuesday marked the last day of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), before its formal merging into the U.S. State Department.

Since its founding in 1961, USAID has been on the frontlines of solving some of the world's most complex challenges. It is credited with saving millions of lives, helping dozens of countries to develop their economies, and investing to build a safer, more prosperous, and democratically-free world. Along with the agency's closing, thousands of USAID employees and agency partners also lost their livelihoods and in some cases their careers, including both inside and outside of the United States.

When we started Unlock Aid in late 2021, we set out to improve and modernize the way the United States invests around the world, including via agencies like USAID. We've had sharp critiques along the way, but our goal was always to help make U.S. international assistance more adaptive and fit for the future.

We are grateful to the thousands of USAID personnel and partners who have dedicated their careers and life's work to making the world a better place. Thank you for your years of dedicated service.

As we work to build what’s next together we want to ensure your voices are heard.

Please fill out our State of Builders report survey today: https://forms.gle/aehDEH1NwzVnVGm8A

To Progress,
Unlock Aid

P.S. Two weeks ago, the Global Prosperity Institute (GPI) published an essay about our work, comparing Unlock Aid's advocacy to elements of the U.S. domestic "abundance" agenda. As policymakers consider the future of U.S. international assistance, the essay effectively captures some of our ideas on the way forward. We have reprinted the GPI essay, with their permission, below.

(US) Abundance > (US) Aid

USAID is gone. Unlock Aid has been thinking about this day for a while.

Jun 25, 2025

On January 24^th, hundreds of organizations around the world received a Stop Work Order from USAID instructing them to pause all USAID funded or USAID related operations. About a month later these orders became full blown contract terminations. USAID as we knew it had ceased to exist.

No one really knows what will replace USAID, if indeed it will be anything. But Unlock Aid has done more thinking than most about Day Zero for the aid world. Along with the usual criticisms of waste and administrative bloat, Unlock Aid has long championed ideas that the US policy world now groups under the “Abundance Agenda”—breaking bureaucratic bottlenecks, reforming procurement, unlocking investment in innovation, and reducing dependence on entrenched contractors. For the sake of the world’s poor, it’s an agenda worth considering.

Unlock Aid: USAID’s Bête Noire (you know, when USAID existed)

Unlock Aid emerged in 2021 determined to “rebuild public institutions for the 21st century.” From the outset it positioned itself against USAID’s contractor heavy model. USAID was the beating heart of the industrial aid complex. The alliteratively named Beltway Bandits and other international contractors capturing 80-90% of the agency’s budget. Local implementors made do with crumbs from the table. USAID officials often bristled at Unlock Aid’s tactics and critiques and the group quickly became something of a bête noire for the agency.

But Unlock Aid’s founders are no Rand Paulian small government zealots who look to slash budgets for the sake of ideological purity. Rather they argue that USAID has shortchanged the world’s poor by adherence to rules that shut out innovators, kept communities away from decision making, and paid Washington salaries instead of funding local solutions. Long before billionaires entertained themselves over a weekend by feeding government departments into a woodchipper, Unlock Aid was agitating for more humane change.

The Abundance Agenda and Unlock Aid

At its core Unlock Aid wants more for the world’s poor. More results, more decision-making power, more progress, but not necessarily more aid funding. Those aims pre-date the recent popularisation of the Abundance Agenda but overlap neatly with the main critiques as they have recently emerged in US policy debates. Abundance thinking has been promoted by writers such as Matt Yglesias, think-tanks like Stand Together, and more recently by the New York Times Best Seller Abundance written by Derek Thompson, a journalist at The Atlantic, and NYT omnipresent columnist Ezra Klein. The core idea of the movement: stop fighting over a fixed pie of resources and create more pie(s)! Remove chokepoints so societies can create more—more housing, energy, health care, and growth—through lighter regulation and faster innovation.

Abundance, the book and the movement, lists the ills of American life and plots a course out of zero-sum politics and resource fights. Unlock Aid has long been singing from this hymn sheet. Its homepage pledges to build a system “on the principles of abundance … decentralizing decision-making power and resources to communities closest to the hardest problems.” Their 2023 listening tour manifesto repeats that a “vision of abundance” should anchor any redesigned US development model. Unlikely that Musk was reading this in 2023, but redesigned the US development model he has nevertheless.

The links to abundance are more than rhetorical flourishes. The first ever policy paper in 2021 talked about how procurement red tape stifled progress, argued for increases in focus on innovation to create more public goods, and challenged decision makers to move away from over-reliance on legacy government contractors. They got these views in Foreign Policy in May of the same year and when they aren’t low key trolling Marco Rubio with ads in his hometown paper, Unlock Aid continue to publish ideas and policy platforms. A few choice abundance inflected themes recur:

• Moving “Beyond Aid” so the U.S. invests globally to expand supply. Unlock Aid isn’t looking for more money necessarily. Just moving beyond grants towards growth capital, echoing abundance writers who emphasize market-scale solutions. Their roadmap pushes compacts, co-investments, unlocking diaspora remittances (which dwarf official development assistance), and leveraging innovative finance instead of the classic project, aid-driven approach.

• Cutting red tape and increasing state capacity. This mirrors US domestic abundance calls for permitting reform. Unlock Aid’s blueprint would let local firms bypass thousand-page solicitations via short concept notes, for example. Many of Unlock Aid’s proposals also deal with ways to enhance government agencies’ abilities to better respond to challenges, such as by recruiting a new generation of talent into federal agencies.

• Localization. A shared insistence on decision making where problems occur and thinking critically about solutions that consider who is the long-term “payor,” whether it be via markets or host country governments rather than perpetual reliance on U.S. taxpayers and U.S. aid industry contractors.

• Embracing innovation. Both the US domestic abundance movement and Unlock Aid call for ramped up public investments in innovation, both to propel the impact of existing, proven social innovators, and to unlock new science and technology discoveries such as to curb disease outbreaks and increase global food security.

Unlock Aid is an America-focused organization that works expressly through pulling and pushing on the (somewhat rubbery) levers of American politics and policy. They hope their platform has enough pro-small government pro-private sector fare for the Republicans and more than enough cosmopolitan internationalism for the Democrats.

The king is dead, long live the king

For too long African development, as viewed from the US and Europe, was focused on aid. The newly emerging abundance agenda is a step away from this mindset. Its very nature is about creating more. Something the private sector – and capitalism writ large – is very comfortable with. Charting a new abundance infused course where once there were DC-based bureaucrats contracting out four-year fixed programs to DC-based consultants is an agenda The GPI can get behind. Governments of Low- and Middle-Income Countries Just Don’t Have Enough Money. Only tax revenues, not aid from USAID or anyone, will be able to be enough to change that.

The implosion of USAID will hurt where aid dollars were overrepresented. But aid was never going to be the rising tide that lifted whole countries. With a bit of creativity and realizing that aid is, at best, a catalyst or a force multiplier for local solutions, the USAID aid apocalypse could clear the way for something much better. Or it might just be a humanitarian disaster zone and a generational stain on the US’s reputation. Fingers crossed that Unlock Aid—with their ideas, verve, and desire to see the welfare of the world’s poor improve as their sole focus—and allies can forge something anew.

We are launching a new effort this summer and we need your help.

While Washington debates the future of U.S. international assistance, builders around the world aren't waiting for permission. They're pivoting. Adapting. Creating new pathways we couldn't have imagined just months ago.

The new playbook is being written in real-time by entrepreneurs who refuse to let critical work stop.

Over the next five weeks, we are kicking off our State of Builders Report, a community-driven research project to understand:

• Who is still building, and what gives them momentum in this moment of uncertainty?

• Where do today’s frontline builders most need support to scale their impact?

• How can global development funders adapt to meet new needs?

We also want to gauge to what degree social entrepreneurs and their partners still want to work with traditional international development funders – and who is pivoting to working in entirely new ways. That includes working via private commercial markets and directly with host country governments.

If there’s one constant in entrepreneurship it’s this: builders build. They adapt.

Our goal is to understand how a collective like ours, consisting of more than 150+ of the world’s top social entrepreneurs, can be of most value. We want to listen to builders, map what they need now, and help shape actionable pathways to support them.

Click here to participate in our research.

Why this matters: Over the past year, the funding landscape for social entrepreneurs has shifted dramatically. Many funders, most notably the U.S. government but also many philanthropies and other bilateral donors, have pulled back. Check out this article, which we co-authored with others in Stanford Social Innovation Review, to learn more about this retrenchment. To understand how we can best support our community of entrepreneurs, we need a clearer picture of where the energy is, where resilience lives, and where new alliances and resources are most needed.

How to get involved: If your organization is actively pivoting and if your mission aligns with the principles outlined in our Aid Reimagined Standards, we want to hear from you.

Click here to participate in our research.

We’re particularly interested to understand:

• How has your organization been affected in the wake of major disruptions to U.S. funding flows?

• Where do you see some of the biggest needs, gaps, and opportunities for broader sector-wide change?

• Looking ahead, where do you see the most promising opportunities for organizations like yours to secure funding or partnerships to scale your impact? For example, to what extent are you pivoting to commercial markets or working directly via host country governments?

• Where are opportunities that you see for coalitions like Unlock Aid and other collectives to play? For example, do you see opportunities where you still need help with changing policy, shifting narratives, matchmaking, shaping markets, or learning from peers?

We will be conducting interviews, roundtables, and surveys through June and July and publishing a final State of Builders Report later this summer.

Our insights will help social innovators, funders, and anyone else who is invested in supporting the next generation of social entrepreneurs to solve the world’s biggest challenges.

We trust the builders

At Unlock Aid, we have always believed that those closest to the work know best where the field needs to go next. The future won't be decided in Washington conference rooms. It's being decided right now by builders who see opportunity where others see obstacles. This is a moment to listen and to rally around those charting new paths. If you’re building the future, click here to speak with us to let us know what you need.

To Progress,
Unlock Aid

P.S. Know a builder or an allied organization that should contribute? Please forward this email and invite them to participate.

Last month, April 30 marked the 100-day milestone of this administration. We spent it exactly where we needed to be: on Capitol Hill, building what comes next.

Unlock Aid and the African Diaspora Network brought together entrepreneurs, innovators, and changemakers for two powerful days in Washington, D.C. Our shared goal: reimagine the future of U.S. global engagement—beyond aid.

We spent two days together in Washington, DC. Day one was focused on building and strategy setting. Day two was focused on action.

Day 1: Designing the Future

🔮 Futures Scenarios Workshop

We kicked off our “Beyond Aid” convening by forecasting the future. The world is likely to look very different in the next 5-10 years. Massive technology shifts turbocharged by artificial intelligence, a rapidly changing climate, and a fast-changing geopolitical environment, among other factors, will create challenges – and opportunities.

Executive Director Aditi Juneja of Democracy 2076 opened the session with a powerful message: having detailed plans for a variety of seemingly impossible scenarios can rewire our brains to look for pathways, even when it looks like progress is difficult to achieve.

This session was designed to help us prepare for what’s coming—by imagining what different futures could look like, and organizing accordingly. Participants explored four distinct “Beyond Aid” scenarios for the year 2030, each reflecting a different theory of how U.S. global engagement could evolve:

• In one scenario, Big Tech's expanded influence created a techno-mercantilist future where U.S. global engagement prioritized resource extraction and transactional relationships.

• In another, after a period of relative isolationism from the world, the U.S. wanted to re-engage, but the rules had been reset, with new partnerships forged across the world that fundamentally changed power dynamics.

• In a third scenario, a major global climate and geopolitical shock served as a watershed moment that forced countries to find ways to work together more than they had before.

For each scenario, each group was asked:

If this were the future, how would our strategy adapt, what coalitions would be required, and what results and corresponding milestones would we need to hit between now and then to know we’re still able to make progress?

This exercise was a reminder that we must not only plan for the world we want, but also be ready to operate and lead in a variety of complex and markedly different global contexts.

🛠️ Implementation Planning Lab

During the second half of the day, we shifted from vision to execution, working through how many of the top policy proposals surfaced via our ReimagineAid.org initiative could be implemented over the next 18 months. That included:

• How could the State Department rapidly deploy more than $14B+ in outstanding health and other life-saving funds – but to invest differently than we have in the past?

• How could we create new channels for Americans – and especially diaspora communities – to co-invest in development initiatives to promote economic growth?

• How could we change the way the United States partners with countries to create a win-win “menu” of investable deals, rather than outsourcing projects to third-party groups?

We developed detailed roadmaps with time-bound deliverables, ready to implement when decision makers call upon us.

As one example, we developed a ready-to-launch Request for Proposals (RFP) for a Health Results Fund — providing a specific way for Secretary Rubio to immediately release funds to restart critical global health programs with clear metrics and strong oversight.

That’s why, last year, we also drafted the Global Innovation and Prosperity Act, a piece of model legislation that lawmakers could introduce that provided a blueprint for a better, more modern U.S. approach to international assistance – and which included many ideas we’re now advancing today.

Day 2: Taking It to the Hill

On Day 2, which marked the 100th day of this administration, we brought our message directly to Congress. One lawmaker told us our proposals were a “breath of fresh air.”

In meetings with priority Members of Congress in both parties and in both the House and Senate, we called for urgent action to:

• Call on Secretary Rubio to release $14B in unspent health funds immediately, but invest differently: Pay frontline actors based on results and prioritize self-reliance from the start.

• Support proposals to unlock diaspora and American co-investment in global development. The global African diaspora sends $100+ billion in remittances each year, more than 3x the amount the African continent receives in U.S. foreign aid.

• Use this as a moment to build a new, better system rather than return to what was:

  • Make innovation America’s calling card via a pilot-to-scale Breakthrough Fund

  • Offer countries a “menu” of investments good for America, good for partners

  • Create an “outcomes marketplaces” that pays only for successful discoveries

Later this month, Secretary Marco Rubio will testify before Congress to defend the President’s budget for U.S. international assistance. This will be one of our first opportunities to see how Congress is considering its role in the future of America’s global leadership, and a key test of whether our advocacy is shaping the debate. Stay tuned.

Who Gets to Build the Future?

Building new systems requires new visions — and new narratives. In this moment of global uncertainty, the future beyond aid has to be imagined before it can be built.

As we consider what comes next, we can’t just have the same people who built the old system reconstruct the new one.

Now is when we need to be bringing new voices and political constituencies to the conversation to shape the future of U.S. engagement with the world. We were so excited to co-host this two-day event with the African Diaspora Network, and we look forward to doing more together, as well as other new allies, to move “beyond remittances” and “beyond aid.”

Thank you to everyone who joined us, contributed your ideas, and committed to what comes next. The work to move to a new future is just beginning – and we’re glad to be building it together.

To Progress,
Unlock Aid

P.S. On May 28-30, the African Diaspora Network will host its African Diaspora Investment Symposium in Washington, DC. We’ll be there. You should RSVP, too. Click here for more information.

A U.S. court recently ordered that tens of billions of dollars of U.S. international assistance funds already approved by Congress – including more than $14 billion in funds for health and other lifesaving programs – must be disbursed by September 30. To date, these resources remain unspent.

Doubling down on our campaign

This week, we're accelerating our campaign to call on Secretary of State Marco Rubio to immediately release already-approved critical lifesaving funds, but to deploy them differently than we have in the past. Pay frontline providers on the basis of results. Bake in self-reliance in from the start. Now is the moment to demonstrate a fundamentally new approach to international assistance that reflects what we've consistently heard people want, both in America and around the world.

Here’s what we’re doing to increase the pressure:

• Targeted ads: This week, we're launching targeted ads across digital and streaming content in 14 key states, reaching priority lawmakers who can influence this critical decision

• Mobilizing constituents: We're driving thousands of phone calls to top lawmakers, asking them to challenge Secretary Rubio to release lifesaving health and humanitarian funds, using these funds as a downpayment on a new future

• Direct advocacy on Capitol Hill: Next week, dozens of coalition partners will meet with lawmakers in Washington, DC, joining us for a day of action to keep up the pressure

• Providing a blueprint on the way forward: We’re also publishing a mock public tender that Secretary Rubio can issue today that reflects the kind of future we want to build

What makes this moment unique isn't just the urgency. We're not calling for a restoration of old systems. It's the opportunity to showcase a fundamentally different model that can immediately save lives, protect Americans’ health, and deliver results in days and weeks, not months or years.

Voices for Change

People across America are already speaking out about why this matters, including teachers, nurses, farmers, parents, and more. Here are just five of the dozens of examples that are hitting social media feeds today:

@fearless_mrsWe can’t reform a broken system by standing still. Real aid. Real reform. Real action. @secrubio it’s time. #SmartAidStrongAmerica #AidWeWant #AidReimagined #sponsored In partnership with Unlock Aid

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@blake_simpson22The Administration’s 90-day review of U.S. foreign assistance is underway—and the clock is ticking. By April 20th, key decisions will be made that will shape how the United States shows up in the world for years to come. This is more than policy—it’s about lives. Smart, life-saving foreign aid has helped cut extreme poverty in half, slash child mortality rates, and fight deadly diseases like HIV and malaria across the globe. When aid is strategic, efficient, and focused on impact, it doesn’t just save lives—it builds stronger, more stable global partnerships. Reimagining U.S. foreign aid means investing in solutions that prevent conflict, boost economies, and strengthen alliances—ultimately making the world safer, including here at home. The next few weeks are critical. Let’s make sure American leadership continue to stand for hope, humanity, and smart global engagement. @secrubio #SmartAidStrongAmerica #AidWeWant #Aidreimagined #fyp

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This builds on the ad we placed last month in the Miami Herald, Secretary Rubio's hometown paper, echoing a similar call:

The message is clear: Release the funds. And use this as a moment for transformative change.

A Blueprint for Transformation

To make this ask even more tangible, we're also publishing an example Request for Participation (RFP) that Secretary Rubio could issue immediately, inverting the traditional "request for proposal" process by creating a $1B Health Results Marketplace in five countries.

On April 16, the White House issued a new executive order on federal procurement reform to create "a faster acquisition cycle, lower barriers to entry for small businesses, startups, and other new entrants, and eliminate wasteful bureaucratic bloat."

This proposed Health Results Marketplace builds on those rules by cutting through red tape to deliver real results by:

• Focusing on proven frontline providers ready to scale – Prioritize organizations already delivering impact on the ground rather than creating new projects from scratch

• Establishing clear pricing for measurable outcomes – Organizations register their capacity to deliver specific health outcomes at transparent, fixed prices

• Accelerating impact with rapid start-up funds – Provide limited upfront capital with subsequent payments strictly tied to verified results

• Leveraging technology providers and digital solutions – Incorporate telehealth platforms, mobile payment systems, and data analytics providers that can enhance efficiency and reduce costs while improving accountability

• Setting concrete transition timelines – Require plans to shift to domestic financing, market-based solutions, or multilateral funding within 24 months

• Embedding local decision-making from day one – Invite partner countries to formally designate their preferred delivery partners to better facilitate funding transitions

This isn't just another bureaucratic funding mechanism. It's a results marketplace that can deploy $1 billion to deliver measurable health outcomes in days and weeks across five initial countries.

If successful, the State Department can expand this model to other countries and sectors.

Join Us

Next week, we're taking our message directly to Capitol Hill. If you want to add your voice to this critical conversation and help shape the future of America's global engagement, click here to register to join us in Washington, DC on April 29-30.

This isn't just about deploying resources now, or preserving funding. It's about reimagining how America engages with the world. It's about building a model that delivers better results for communities abroad and greater returns for American taxpayers. It's about creating the #AidWeWant.

To Progress,
Unlock Aid

P.S. Have you seen our results from ReimagineAid.org? Over 600 people and 20+ experts voted on bold ideas to transform the future of U.S. international assistance. Check out what they prioritized and add your voice to the conversation.

Subscribe now

Secretary Rubio's plan for U.S. international assistance was due to President Trump this weekend. According to recent Devex reporting, that deadline has now shifted by 30 days. Whatever the date, what happens next will shape America's role in the world for decades.

Let's be clear: The abrupt termination of life-saving programs has left millions hanging in the balance. It has uprooted dedicated public servants and dismantled infrastructure critical to America's foreign policy. This is an extraordinarily challenging moment – but it also offers a rare opportunity to build something fundamentally better.

We've done the work. We've developed the proposals. Now it's time to act.

Join Unlock Aid and the African Diaspora Network in Washington, DC on April 29–30, where we're bringing a new vision for America's global engagement directly to the people shaping it. Click here to register.

We Did the Assignment: Scenario Planning, Not Hypotheticals

This crisis didn’t catch us flat-footed. U.S. international assistance has been blinking red for years, with calls for major change coming from across the political spectrum and around the world. From Dambisa Moyo’s Dead Aid to Mia Mottley’s Bridgetown Initiative, from Mariana Mazzucato’s The Big Con to Clayton Christensen, Efosa Ojomo, and Karen Dillon's The Prosperity Paradox, to Ken Opalo's incisive critiques, and more—leaders from the Global South and North alike have long called for a reset.

Two years ago, sensing a seismic shift was brewing, we launched a global listening tour. We engaged hundreds of social innovators, entrepreneurs, investors, diaspora communities, faith leaders, and national security experts across America and around the world. Our central question was clear: "If we could start over with a blank sheet of paper, how would we redesign America's approach to global development?"

This wasn’t theoretical – it was scenario planning. In Foreign Policy last year, we warned that if Trump returned to office, he would likely move quickly to dismantle the existing system. We argued that defending the status quo would not be enough – or persuasive. We needed a bold, proactive agenda ready to meet the moment.

We translated what we heard into the Global Innovation and Prosperity Act (GIPA), a legislative proposal to reboot U.S. international assistance for the 21st century. GIPA prioritizes economic growth, innovation, and cost effective, strategic investment over traditional aid. It sets clear transition timelines, emphasizes measurable results, and offers scalable pathways to shift away from donor dependency.

Months later, Senators Ricketts (R-NE) and Coons (D-DE) announced their intent to introduce a proposal echoing many of GIPA's themes, a clear signal of bipartisan momentum for change.

We Were Always Going to Push for Change – No Matter Who Took Office

We always knew January 20 would mark a turning point. Regardless of who was sworn in, we were prepared to push for major reform within the first 100 days:

• In November, we published ideas tailored to the incoming administration.

• When it became clear the administration planned a major overhaul, we mobilized, updated our proposals, and prepared to meet the challenge.

• Last month, we launched ReimagineAid.org, where over 600 people and 20+ experts voted on 30+ transformational ideas.

We also took immediate action to mitigate the aid freeze's impact:

• Within 5 days of the foreign aid freeze, we hosted free "Ask Me Anything" sessions with legal experts for hundreds of affected organizations.

• Within 6 days of the foreign aid freeze, we mobilized with partners to drive thousands of constituent calls to Members of Congress to lift the stop-work orders for life-saving programs.

• Within 29 days of the foreign aid freeze, we launched the Foreign Aid Bridge Fund, raising nearly $2 million and channeling 100% of funds raised (minus bank processing fees) to dozens of affected frontline organizations. We made our first emergency grants within one week of launching the fund.

Join Unlock Aid and the African Diaspora Network in Washington, DC to Shape What Happens Next

Now we must shift our focus to what happens next. As part of our efforts to bring diverse voices to the issue, we are partnering with the African Diaspora Network (ADN), a leading organization that has championed the Beyond Remittances initiative over the past three years, to co-host our Capitol Hill Day in April in Washington, D.C. Click here to register to join us.

Get Involved Today to Build a New System

The administration dismantled the old system with record speed. We must rebuild with that same urgency – to create something better.

Next week, we're stepping up our campaign with specific, actionable proposals for the Trump Administration and for Congress.

In the immediate term:

• Release global health and life-saving funds, but invest differently. We’re doubling down on our calls, first published in the Miami Herald, for Secretary Rubio to release already-approved funding for health and life-saving programs. But to invest these funds in a new way:

  • Pay frontline actors – like community health worker networks, private pharmacies, tele-health and other technology providers, logistics firms, and faith-based groups – based on results. Make investments in community health workers central to the strategy.

  • These groups are ready to deliver results in days and weeks, not months or years.

  • Expand direct cash transfers. Use tools like blockchain and other digital payments technologies to track disbursements and impact.

  • Where feasible, create clear off-ramps to transition from foreign aid to local financing.

  • When successful, scale this approach to other sectors.

Before the midterm elections:

• Unlock Diaspora and American Co-Investment: Create new pathways for Americans – and especially African diaspora communities – to co-invest in Africa’s development. Enable remittances and other citizen investments to flow into vetted ventures, giving people a direct stake in global prosperity. The global African diaspora sends over $100 billion in remittances each year, more than three times the amount the African continent receives in foreign aid.

• Build a Menu of Win-Win Partnerships: Offer countries a vetted menu of investment-ready projects in key sectors like health, energy, food security, and digital infrastructure – areas with clear strategic benefit to both sides. All partnerships include metrics, co-investment, timelines, and a clear path to local ownership.

• Make Innovation America’s Calling Card: Launch a pilot-to-scale breakthrough fund and outcomes marketplace. Pay only for results delivered – on challenges like new vaccines and medicines, diagnostics, or new crop varieties – while incentivizing private sector R&D investment at no financial risk to taxpayers.

In addition to these proposals, we've compiled a comprehensive set of ideas at ReimagineAid.org, in our policy memo to the Trump Administration, and in the Global Innovation and Prosperity Act.

Join Unlock Aid and the African Diaspora Network in Washington, DC on April 29–30, where we're bringing a new vision for America's global engagement directly to the people shaping it. Click here to register.

Break Past the False Choice

The current debate around America's global engagement is trapped in a false choice: either restore an outdated status quo or drastically cut funding. This framing serves neither American interests nor those of our global partners.

The way ahead isn’t to go back – it’s to build forward. From Florida to Kenya, from North Carolina to India, from California to Colombia, we heard the same message: communities want something beyond aid. They want opportunity. Jobs. Trade. Health security. Technology. Partnership. Remarkably, these are the same things Americans want, too. Americans don’t want to "fix" other nations – and other nations don’t want to be "fixed."

What both sides want is partnership. Mutual benefit. A new model of engagement rooted in shared ambition, not charity.

The way forward will look different in humanitarian contexts than in stable economies. And no idea is one-size-fits-all. But across the board, we need a new approach to U.S. international investments – one that reflects the realities – and the opportunities — of the 21st century, for Americans, and for our partners.

The future of America’s global engagement is being decided now. Let’s make sure it reflects the values, vision, and future we believe in.

Join Unlock Aid and the African Diaspora Network in Washington, DC on April 29–30, where we're bringing a new vision for America's global engagement directly to the people shaping it. Click here to register.

To progress,
Unlock Aid

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