…launches 2025 impact report
Amid a volatile global landscape and a historic decline in global aid, the Rockefeller Foundation has successfully awarded more than $350 million, directly mobilised $3 billion and reached 731 million people worldwide.
The figures were published in the foundation’s annual impact report, Big Bets, Real Results, released on Thursday.
In Africa, the foundation funded $133.2 million across 66 opportunities. The continent remains a priority for the 113-year-old philanthropy as it shifts more resources toward market-driven solutions and partnerships to sustain impact amid shrinking public funding.
The report highlights how African-led partnerships are scaling solutions across health, food security, and energy as global aid budgets face their steepest decline in decades.
“As the Rockefeller Foundation marks 60 years of its Africa regional office, it reflects a broader shift in the future of development,” said William Asiko, senior vice president and head of the foundation’s Africa regional office.
“Amid aid cuts, geopolitical tensions and conflict, climate impacts, and political change, progress is becoming harder to sustain,” Asiko said.
Against this backdrop, he noted that the focus is increasingly on strengthening African capacity across health, education, and energy, as well as on African-led solutions and leadership, alongside the role of philanthropic capital.
He added that the foundation’s latest impact report highlights how it is reimagining progress through mission-driven action and partnerships.
In West Africa, a funding model backed by the Global Fund, Rockefeller Foundation, Abbott Foundation, and IQVIA has helped build laboratory infrastructure and real-time surveillance networks across 11 countries.
The system has detected more than 100 outbreaks, including viral haemorrhagic fevers, and trained over 1,000 laboratory technicians to strengthen early response capacity.
Case studies from the report show similar momentum in agriculture and energy.
In Nigeria, an interconnected mini-grid system now powers 30,000 people, creating nearly 14,000 jobs and unlocking more than $287 million to scale nationally.
Digital Green’s AI-powered app, FarmerChat, has also reached over 1.6 million downloads across six countries, with 83 percent of female users reporting greater confidence in farm investment.
In Ghana, the foundation’s partnership with the World Food Programme is connecting schools to local food systems, prioritizing fortified whole grains and diverse proteins while building smallholder capacity.
In Zambia, Mission 300 is expanding access to electricity, part of a broader push that has already connected 44 million people through World Bank and African Development Bank projects.
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