Our Year In Review

Over the past several years, in my Annual Report letter, I have spoken about the increasingly challenging global landscape in which CIFF is trying to create positive outcomes for children. I have reflected on the increasing geopolitical and economic shifts which are having a ripple effect across the climate and development space: the rise in poverty, hunger, extreme weather events, and backsliding on gender equality.

Our collective response has not yet met the increasingly urgent demand, particularly for resources and capacity. We continue to retreat into single-issue silos ignoring opportunities for integration, efficiency and innovation.

Choosing bold and systemic transformation, rather than inadequate incrementalism, is the only hope we have for ensuring we don’t fall further from our global climate and development targets, and instead actively move towards them. Taking actions which look beyond short-term political and economic cycles is crucial.

If we hope to deliver that systemic transformation, 2023 showed us more than ever the need to work across three critical spheres of influence in an integrated manner: global and multilateral, national and subnational, and in conjunction with the private sector. And that is what CIFF does: working across those spheres to support systemic change from the top-down and bottom-up, in partnership with civil society.

As part of this we disbursed disbursed over $578 million to grantees last year and made $516 million in multi-year commitments – as well as building deep and sustained partnership with organisations across the ecosystems we work in.

It is impossible to cover the breadth and detail of all this work, but I do want to spotlight some key examples.

Throughout 2023 CIFF has supported action to reform the global financial architecture and our multilateral institutions and processes. As an example, we supported India's G20 Presidency work on the Global Initiative on Digital Health (GIDH); a WHO managed network of organisations, institutions and government technical agencies actively engaged in supporting national digital health transformation. It aims to focus on country-level efforts to align resources towards country-led digital health transformation through strengthened collaboration and knowledge exchange.

We also supported partners working on global finance reform through the Paris Summit for a New Global Financing Pact and engaged deeply with the ambitious Africa Climate Summit in Nairobi. And at COP28 we worked with partners in support of notable outcomes on fossil fuel transition, the championing of young voices, and the delivery of climate financing. We announced an ambitious joint $450m pledge over three years to help countries phase out super pollutants faster, as well as institutionalising the voice of the Youth Climate Champion to ensure future generations are offered a rightful seat at the decision-making table.

Personally, I was proud to be a member of the COP28 Advisory Committee, and while we still aren’t making nearly enough progress, I'll continue to work on the COP process to build on the outcomes from Dubai and support the UAE in delivering on its COP legacy and its ambition to become a green finance hub for emerging markets.

Of course, our work can only happen through collaboration with allyship from governments, at the national and subnational level, to embed programmes and enable sustainability. One example of this is our RISE Acceleration Campaign which supports girls with family planning choices in Ethiopia. This past year we have seen a 300% increase compared to 2022 in girls becoming adopters of this programme. Empowering girls to make choices about their own health and their family's financial future has helped address long standing socio-cultural barriers and enabled girls to stay in school for longer, showing the holistic impact of investing in health with localised support.

The third part of the jigsaw is the private sector, where we are redoubling our efforts to plug delivery gaps and incentivise action through voluntary norms and standards – on issues like transition planning and greenwashing – as a stepping stone towards necessary regulation.

In all this work, we continue to collaborate closely with our philanthropic partners. In 2023, for example, CIFF also worked with Audacious to bring together funders who, amongst other successes, raised $100 million to further help our shared mission with our grantee CAMFED, to support girls to thrive through education. As an Audacious finalist from 2023, the ReNew 2030 coalition of experts, civil society, and philanthropy will also help us to mobilise key actors around the world towards a fast and fair energy transition, in line with COP28's renewable energy targets.

So, although we still have a long way to go to reach our global goals, 2023 reasserted that impactful change is possible – through working collaboratively at the global and multilateral level, with national and local governments, with the private sector, and with civil society and philanthropy across sectors and geographies.

That does not mean that CIFF is settling. In fact, we are currently in the process of shifting our ambition to ensure an even greater focus on our guiding missions which support the most relevant SDGs for vulnerable children in partnership with an ecosystem of partners that will enable delivery. A key step towards this in 2023 was the introduction of the Chief Ecosystem Development Officer, a role taken by our Executive Director for Climate Sonia Medina, in an expansion of her role. Moving forward, our mission-led ecosystem-based approach will drive all aspects of our work.

As the external environment continues to test our collective efforts, I remain optimistic about what can be achieved and believe that the changes we are making to the way CIFF operates will strengthen our contribution. I want to thank our Founder and Chair, Sir Christopher Hohn, and the wider CIFF Board of Trustees for their ongoing support. And I want to thank the Executive Team and all my CIFF colleagues, as well our incredible and inspiring network of partners across the world, for all their efforts throughout 2023.

I am excited by the work that we are doing and I trust it brings some measure of hope to many. I look forward to a world that is healthy, fair and safe for all our children.