The Global Development Incubator Inc

Programs: Agenterprise:gdi's agenterprise portfolio focuses on improving lives and livelihoods in rural communities by integrating novel financing solutions and information technology. In particular, gdi built and now incubates isf advisors, an advisory group committed to transforming rural economies by delivering partnerships and investment structures that promote financial inclusion for rural enterprises and smallholder farmers, and the mastercard foundation rural and agricultural finance learning lab, a learning lab fostering knowledge creation, sharing, and collaboration that leads to better financial solutions provided to more smallholder farmers and other rural clients. Through these initiatives and other related efforts in the agenterprise portfolio, gdi brings together key players from across the rural and smallholder farmer finance value chain - from banks, to non-profit implementers - who otherwise may never have collaborated despite their shared goals.

beyond health:gdi's beyond health portfolio focuses on building healthy communities by scaling up multi-sectoral innovations in neglected health areas and catalyzing the use of technology to unlock human potential. In particular, gdi built and now incubates citiesrise, a multi-stakeholder initiative addressing the rising tide of mental health issues among young people. Through citiesrise, gdi has been able to bring together funders, city leaders, academics, and healthcare professionals who previously did not coordinate, and empower each to play a role in supporting mental health among young people - a critical, but often ignored, area of health. Building off learnings from gdi's incubation of healthenabled, an organization that helps african governments integrate digital health solutions into their policies, gdi and healthenabled co-launched the global digital health index, an interactive digital resource that tracks, monitors, and evaluates the use of digital technology for health across countries. Ultimately through these efforts, gdi aims to bring together the worlds of technology, government, and health innovation to help countries overcome persistent challenges to implementing sustainable digital health solutions at scale.

impact escalated:gdi's impact escalated portfolio focuses on scaling impact through financial inclusion, social entrepreneurship, and innovative finance. The portfolio has brought to life several new approaches in these areas including co-impact - a philanthropic collaborative for systems change, focused on improving the lives of millions of people around the world - and the collaborative for frontier finance - a multi-stakeholder initiative that coordinates and supports fund managers, funders, and fieldbuilders to increase access to capital for small and growing businesses in emerging markets. Gdi also brought partners together to build the partnership for economic inclusion - an initiative that manages a global community of practice consisting of hundreds of partners across ngos, researchers and foundations that aims to shift existing government poverty programs from a focus on social protection and safety nets to a focus on programs that integrate livelihoods, social, and economic inclusion for the extreme poor. In the realm of innovative finance, gdi has piloted a new role of "trustee" as part of the village enterprise development impact bond (dib), the first-ever outcome-based dib poverty alleviation in sub-saharan africa. Through developing and playing the trustee role, gdi aims to mitigates the challenges of setting up future dibs by reducing cost and processing time, "crowding in" investors, and ensuring a neutral party manages contracts, risks, and cashflows.

development frontiers:gdi's development frontiers portfolio advances the global development architecture by helping design, build, and launch initiatives that apply unorthodox approaches to governance, financing, and human capacity. In the realm of governance, gdi has developed emerging public leaders, an organization that places talented, young, local leaders in two-year government fellowships to drive africa's development and create a new generation of civil service leaders. To unlock new modes of financing, gdi supports the sourcing and diligence process for unorthodox philanthropy - a philanthropic initiative focused on funding social impact ideas that require a finite amount of capital to succeed - and also led the design, build, and launch of convergence, the global network for blended finance, which exited gdi in 2017 and now stands as an independent organization. To address the immense challenge of human trafficking in a new and more coordinated way, gdi incubates the global fund to end modern slavery, a public-private partnership that seeks to catalyze and coordinate a coherent global strategy to end modern slavery.