President Jimmy Carter's lifetime of service

Water scarcity is a growing problem around the world, especially in the Middle East, but climate change is only half the story.

In this episode of The Impact Room, we look at the social, economic, and geopolitical importance of water.  We explore how its co-option, commodification, and unequal  distribution is creating shortages affecting health and livelihoods and fuelling local and regional conflicts.

Join host Maysa Jalbout in conversation with:

• Professor Mark Zeitoun, the director general of the Geneva Water Hub and Professor of Water Diplomacy at the Graduate Institute of Geneva;
• Dr Danilo Turk, the former president of Slovenia, a candidate for UN secretary general in 2016, and a former chair of the Global High-Level Panel on Water; 
• Dr Muna Dajani, a fellow at the Geography and Environment Department at LSE, and an expert on community struggles around rights to water and land resources in settler colonial contexts including Palestine and the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.

They discuss the gaps in global and regional water management, unpack what it means for water to be weaponised (as is the case  in the besieged Gaza Strip) and make the case for more philanthropic support for frontline community organisations.

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

The Rockefeller Foundation is one of the world’s oldest and largest philanthropies. It was launched in 1910 with funds from oil, but in 2020, unveiled a plan to divest its US$5bn endowment from existing fossil fuel interests and refrain from future investments in the sector. 

The foundation has also committed to invest US$1bn of programme resources into collaborations and partnerships in the areas of energy, food, health and financial systems.

This is with the aim of creating the changes possible to keep 1.5 degrees alive as a global temperature target, and protect three billion people on Earth, who live in countries vulnerable to future climate transitions.

To talk about The Rockefeller Foundation’s climate strategy, and so-called Big Bets philanthropy, , its president Dr Rajiv Shah,  joined Maysa in the The Impact Room shortly before the UAE hosted COP28.

Optimistic that we have the science and know-how to curb climate change, Dr Raj admits a lot still comes down to financing. “I hope to see absolute serious financing solutions being provided to emerging and developing economies to allow them to access the renewable energy technology frontier that is so defining the global transition in terms of climate and wealthy economies,” he says.

And he adds: “In an age of abundance, we don't need to have nearly a billion people living in energy poverty, 800 million people hungry every night, and girls still experiencing deep vulnerability and discrimination around the planet.”

Collaboration is a recurring theme in the interview and Dr Raj says Global North investors needed to “drive more capital into emerging economies and developing economies to ensure everyone benefits from an accelerated climate transition.”

Dr Raj joined the Rockefeller Foundation in 2015 after six years at the helm of the US foreign aid agency, USAID, leading it during the response to the Haiti earthquake and the West African Ebola pandemic.

The founder of Latitude Capital, a private equity firm focused on power and infrastructure projects in Africa and Asia, he has also worked at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where he created the International Financing Facility for Immunisation, and he has served as a Distinguished Fellow in Residence at Georgetown University in Washington DC.

Dr Raj's book, Big Bets: How Large-Scale Change Really Happens, is designed to inspire nonprofit leaders re-imagine how they approach social impact.

About the host

Maysa Jalbout is a leader in international development and philanthropy. Her previous roles include founding CEO of the Abdulla Al Ghurair Foundation for Education, a $1bn philanthropic initiative based in Dubai, and founding CEO of the Queen Rania Foundation. Maysa is a visiting scholar at MIT and ASU, and a non-resident Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Find her on Twitter @MaysaJalbout.

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

Close to 800 million people were classed as food insecure in 2022 due to a mix of conflict, rises to cost of living, Covid-19, and climate change, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

As needs rise and budgets shrink, aid agencies are unable to keep up with demand and shrinking budgets are leading to ration cuts resulting in yet more hunger, malnutrition, poverty, and insecurity.

In this episode of The Impact Room, recorded ahead of the UAE hosting COP28, we shine a spotlight on the global food crisis, looking at the ways climate change has exacerbated hunger, and examine the role for philanthropy to support systemic-level solutions.

Catherine Bertini, who served as executive director of the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) for 10 years, shares shocking statistics about the grim scale of the global hunger problem and what it means for individuals and communities.

“The combination of increased numbers of many people who continue to live in long term war or civil strife situations and the lack of assistance make this a very dire year indeed,” she tells our host, Maysa Jalbout.

But Bertini, who was named the 2003 World Food Prize Laureate, and is now working with the Rockefeller Foundation on a food-focused initiative, is hopeful that COP28 will lead to new action around the links between agriculture and climate. 

“Last year was the first time that a COP acknowledged that agriculture should be discussed and considered in the context of climate change, and this year the UAE is putting that front and centre… so I am hopeful there will be permanent acknowledgement that agriculture and the environment and climate are intricately and forever connected.”

Dr Alok Ranjan, director of programmes and investments at the Power of Nutrition, a philanthropy and government-backed funding collaborative targeting malnutrition, meanwhile, outlined how well – or otherwise - children eat in their first 1,000 days can determine their future life trajectory.

“Almost 80 to 90 percent of brain development happens during the first thousand days of life, that’s the golden window of opportunity that we have,” he explains. “Good nutrition has a major impact on not just health but also education outcomes… one of my favourite quotes is ‘two is equal to 17’ because making impact on this SDG2 would have an impact on all the 17 SDGs,” he tells Maysa.

Finally, Dr. Guyo Roba, the director of the Jameel Observatory for Food Security Early Action in Kenya, (JOFESA), a philanthropy-backed initiative using data to mitigate climate talks and agricultural systems, meanwhile, called for ‘better action for the future of food”.

“We need to invest in early warning preparedness and response much better,” he says. “We need to also align our financing because the biggest missing thing is that early warning is there, prediction is very clear, timely, but then there's no financing to support people at the first shock.”

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

Wanjira Mathai is the managing director of the World Resources Institute (WRI), the chief Africa adviser to the Bezos Earth Fund and the former chair of the Green Belt Movement in her native Kenya. 

Speaking to Maysa Jalbout on The Impact Room ahead of COP28, Mathai, describes the moment we’re in as “the decisive decade” and warns that “the science is getting shaper”, “the challenge is deep”, and “we have a lot of work to do”.

Mathai, who was named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2023, says she hopes that COP28 in the UAE will be “dominated by a spirit of action and implementation”. And she calls for “a consensus” on operationalising the loss and damage fund as well as further commitments to double finance for climate adaptation.

Nairobi-based Wajira Mathai is an leading voice in AFR 100, the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative, which aims to restore 100 million hectares on the continent by 2030. 

WRI, through its Restore Local Initiative, recently received US$100m from the Audacious Project to accelerate locally led land restoration in Lake Kivu and the Congo River Basin in the DRC, in the Cocoa Belt of Ghana, and in Kenya’s Rift Valley. This was in addition to US$50m already committed by the Bezos Earth Fund.

The fact that this funding is committed over multiple years and comes from a group of donors is as important as its value, Mathai says, as it creates an important proof of concept for pooled funding for climate adaptation and restoration projects in the Global South.

“Restoration in Africa remains one of the greatest opportunities for building climate resilience,” she explains. “We know that if landscapes are restored, a lot happens. You have increased food productivity because soils are improved… Landscapes regenerate and restore pretty quickly. All things considered. So in two to three decades, you can have a complete transformation of landscapes and livelihoods.”

In September 2023, Africa hosted its first climate summit in Kenya. Mathai sees this as a significant milestone in the continent’s role when it comes to fighting climate change. “We are part of the climate solution,” she says. 

“We're not part of the problem… We have a lot going for us. We have the fastest growing workforce in the world, an abundance of critical minerals and an abundance of renewable energy, which could come together and catalyse not only economic transformation for Africa, but also become part of the renewable energy revolution.”

For all the challenges facing the climate, Mathai says she remains optimistic about the future. “I am optimistic, mainly because the alternative is unacceptable,” she tells Maysa, noting that she’s inspired by revolutions in electric vehicles and solar, and in the growing youth and local leadership movements. 

“I'm inspired by so many signals around that remind you that exponential change is possible,” she says. “We have so much more democratic space. We have so many more tools. We have so many more of us. We have to be optimistic.”

Read the World Resources Institute's 2023 State of Climate Action report here.

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

We were due to kick off Season Four with a series of interviews about climate philanthropy, ahead of the UAE hosting COP28, but we felt we could not ignore the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza. 

In solidarity with the people of Palestine, we have recorded some special episodes about the impact this latest war is having on innocent people. 

We want to both highlight the current emergency, and also explore what role philanthropy can - and should - be playing to help those in need.

At the time of recording this interview with PCRF founder, Steve Sosebee, on November 14th, more than 11,000 Palestinians had been killed by the Israeli bombardment, which began on October 7th, in retaliation to Hamas’s attack on Israel.  Of those, more than 4,500 were children.

Since the partial opening of the Rafah border crossing from Egypt on October 21st, some emergency relief has trickled into Gaza. But it is in no way near enough to support a population that has long been dependent on aid after two decades of an Israeli blockade.

Days after this recording was made, Gaza’s health system collapsed and officials stopped counting deaths and casualties.

In this moving interview Steve Sosebee, the founder and president of the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF), is unequivocal in his assessment of the impact the Israeli bombardment is having on Gaza’s children.

“The trauma and the violence that's been imposed on the children of Gaza is going to leave a lasting psychological scar,” he tells host  Maysa Jalbout. “This is not post-traumatic stress; this is ongoing and continuous.”

Sosebee set up the PCRF in 1991, after meeting a young Palestinian who’d lost both his legs and a hand in an Israeli bomb blast in Hebron.  Moved by the boy’s plight, Steve, who at the time was working in Palestine as a freelance journalist,  fundraised for Mansour to be flown to the United States for treatment.

Three decades later, the PCRF is a multinational NGO with chapters in 25 countries. It has raised more than 100 million dollars to pay for 2,000 children to travel overseas for medical treatment, and organised some 800 medical missions to operate on tens of thousands of youngsters in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, and Jordan.

Until October 7th, the PCRF was running Gaza’s only paediatric cancer unit, which it had opened in 2019 after a four-year fundraising campaign. Like nearly all healthcare facilities in Gaza, this is no longer operational, and several of the young people that PCRF had previously flown overseas for treatment have been killed by airstrikes.

Asked about the role for philanthropy in responding to the needs of Gaza’s children, Sosebee says: “It’s the responsibility of foundations not to turn a blind eye because of the politics or because it is a controversial issue, with air quotes.” And he adds that all donors, foundations, development organisations, and aid agencies had a “moral and ethical responsibility” to support those affected by the violence.

“Everything to do with Palestine and Gaza is political: water's political, food's political, education is political, health care is political… And as a result, it's easy for donors to turn away and say, this is too risky for us. But I think that's the easy way out."

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

Climate change, food security, funding collaboratives, and design for development. These are just some of the topics we’ll be discussing in Season Four of The Impact Room.

Join Maysa Jalbout in conversation with a diverse line-up of global philanthropists, development leaders, industry experts, and frontline organisations as they share insights and inspiration.

With the UAE due to host COP28 at the end of the year, we’ll be applying a climate lens to several of our episodes, looking at the role for philanthropy in helping to improve water and food security, and delivering equitable energy transitions and climate justice.

We’ll also be digging into funding collaboratives: what they are, and the pros and cons associated with group giving.  And finally, we’ll be looking at how design can influence development and why how we build things changes the way we interact with our surroundings. 

Subscribe now, so you don’t miss an episode. 

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

This is a special episode dedicated to President Carter, who aged 98 has recently entered a hospice, and the extraordinary impact he has had around the world in the decades since leaving the White House.

From resolving conflicts and building homes for the poor, to eradicating disease and championing human rights, President Carter’s impact has been felt far and wide and in 2002, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

We hear from people he worked with, as well as those whose lives he has touched, his grandson Jason Carter, who is now board chair of The Carter Center -  a nonprofit he set up to focus on conflict resolution, democracy, and health - and Curtis Kohlhaas, the organisation’s director of international philanthropy.

Born in 1924 in Plains Georgia, James Earl Carter Jr. served in the US Navy before his opposition to racial segregation took him into politics. He was governor of Georgia from 1971 to 1975 and in 1976 became the 39th president of the United States.

One of the last remaining members of his generation of leaders, President Carter displayed a unique ability to relate to ordinary people – something credited to his own humble upbringing as the son of a peanut farmer. Yet, he was also able to leverage his high-level connections to work on issues neglected by the majority and bring them into the mainstream.

In addition to their work with The Carter Center, President Carter and his wife Rosalyn have also been long-time supporters of housing charity, Habitat for Humanity. And, until very recently, despite both being quite frail, spent several days a year volunteering and over the years personally helped to build and renovate thousands of homes.

One of President Carter’s least well-known areas of work, yet possibly his most impactful, relates to Guinea worm, a waterborne parasite, which causes untold suffering its hosts.

In the 1980s, when the Carter Center began its programme to tackle the disease, there were believed to be more than 3.5million cases worldwide.

As of last year, the global caseload stood at just 13 - in five countries (Angola, Chad, Ethiopia, Mali and South Sudan) – which is equivalent to a 99.99 percent decrease and Guinea worm is now on course to become only the second human disease - after smallpox - to be eradicated.

The Just 13 poem about Guinea worm featured in the podcast was written and performed by Waleed Gubara. 

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

Mosun Layode, Bheki Moyo, and Degan Ali discuss development funding and philanthropy in Africa.

Just 14 percent of large gifts by international donors get to local NGOs in Africa, and only 9 percent of large gifts by African funders are channelled to proximate organisations, according to Bridgespan research. The rest of the money goes to governments and international NGOs.

Why this happens – and what it means for on-the-ground organisations, programming, and final impact – is at the heart of this episode of The Impact Room, where we take a deep dive into African development funding and the thorny topic of decolonising aid.

Host Maysa Jalbout  explores the barriers to funding grassroots entities in Africa and why the status quo is so hard to shift – but also hear about some new solutions designed to “shift the power” from donor to implementer and create more equitable partnerships.

Mosun Layode, the executive director of the African Philanthropy Forum (APF), which was formed in 2014 to shift the needle on development funding on the continent, kicks off the episode with a detailed landscape analysis of leading funders and innovative initiatives.  Layode, who is also a board member of Candid and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, calls for greater collaboration among donors to amplify impact and tackle systemic issues. 

Professor Bheki Moyo, chair and director of the Centre on African Philanthropy and Social Investment (CAPSI), at Wits University Business School in Johannesburg, South Africa appeals to philanthropists to do more to fund African civil society working on “abstract” causes, such as human rights and policy issues, rather than just supporting “materialistic” initiatives such as building schools or donating computers.

Maysa's third guest, Degan Ali, is the executive director of Adeso, a development and humanitarian NGO working in the Horn of Africa.  She shares her views on why the current funding system for aid and development isn’t working, the opportunities for philanthropy to seed new approaches, and how donors can operate more equitably.

A long-time activist and leading voice in the aid localization debate, Ali has recently spearheaded the launch of the Pledge for Change, calling on iNGOs to commit more equitable partnerships and authentic storytelling to create a stronger aid ecosystem based on the principles of solidarity, humility, self-determination and equality.

The books, articles, and organisations mentioned in this episode include:

• Higherlife Foundation
• The Tony Elumelu Foundation
• Aspire Coronation Trust (ACT) Foundation
• KujaLink
• Dr. Arikana Chihombori
• Howard Nichols
• The art of gathering: how we meet and why it matters -  by Priya Parker 
• Shifting sands, shifting power - Social Investor Magazine

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

Ninety percent of children's brains are developed by the age of five - yet around the world, millions of young people are missing out on adequate nutrition, care, and stimulating play, causing them to fall behind, even more they have started school.

In this episode of The Impact Room, host Maysa Jalbout discusses the global crisis in early years care and asks what philanthropy and governments can - and should be - doing to fix it.

Maysa is joined by Theirworld chair Sarah Brown and preside Justin van Fleet, Hilton Foundation CEO Peter Laugharn, and Sabrina Habib, the founder of nonprofit social enterprise Kidogo. 

Sarah Brown and Justin van Fleet talk about their charity's new global campaign, Act For Early Years, which is calling for more investment into early years and a UN decade for action on early childhood care, education, and development.

Other campaign asks from Theirworld include: investment in a fully-trained, qualified and funded early years workforce; publishing of annual data on government spending on early childhood development; more family-friendly polices such as income support programmes, parental leave and affordable childcare for working parents; and the creation of a more integrated approach to early years interventions across sectors and government.

Act for Early Years is being part-funded by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, whose CEO, Peter Laugharn, outlines to Maysa why the early years matter so much and explains what his foundation is doing in this space.

Also appearing on this episode is Sabrina Habib, the co-founder of Kidogo, a nonprofit social enterprise giving give low-income families in Kenya access to affordable and quality childcare while also giving employment to - and empowering - local women. Explaining how she stumbled into the sector after being shown an informal “baby care” centre in Nairobi, Habib makes a passionate appeal to governments to realign their priorities.

For more about the #ActforEarlyYears campaign follow @theirworld on social media. 

The books mentioned on this episode include:

• "Your Story Matters" by Nikesh Shukla
• "Wavewalker - Breaking Free" by Suzanne Heywood
• "The Go-Between" by Osman Yousefzada
• "Active Hope" by Joanna Macy
• "Loonshots" by Safi Bahcall

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge

Elizabeth Tanya Masiyiwa and Neera Nundy join host Maysa Jalbout in The Impact Room to discuss gender equality and what philanthropy can do to advance its progress.

The Sustainable Development Goals were launched in 2015 to eliminate extreme poverty and support sustainable and resilient development. But eight years and a global pandemic later, many of the SDGs are hanging in the balance, none more so than goal number 5, with its target of gender equality.  On this, progress hasn’t just stalled, it has reversed, and according to the UN, it could take another 300 years to achieve gender equality.

In this episode of The Impact Room, Maysa examines what role philanthropy is - and / or should be - playing to accelerate progress towards SDG5. 

According a  Lilly Family School of Philanthropy study, just 1.9% of US charitable donations go to women and girls, this is despite the emergence of a new movement of so-called gender-lens philanthropy spearheaded by donors such as MacKenzie Scott and Melinda French Gates, through initiatives like Pivotal Ventures and Co-Impact.

What does applying a gender lens mean for philanthropy? How are funders changing how they give and what do organisations need to do differently?

A philanthropist and social entrepreneur, Elizabeth Tanya Masiyiwa is the executive director of her family's Higherlife Foundation, the CEO of Delta Philanthropies in the UK, and the founder of ed-tech startup, Akello.

Seasoned nonprofit leader, Neera Nundy quit her Wall Street job to co-found Dasra, which has grown to become India’s leading philanthropy platform.

They discuss with Maysa why gendered philanthropy matters, explain the importance of funding systems change, and share examples of initiatives and funders who are starting to make a real difference on the ground.  

You can read full text of the remarks by Antonio Guturres' at the 2023 Commission on the Status of Women here and for more of Melinda French Gates's interview with The Economist, click here.

The Impact Room is brought to you by Philanthropy Age and Maysa Jalbout. Find us on social media @PhilanthropyAge