Development Co-operation Profiles

The Bezos Earth Fund was created in 2020 with a commitment of USD 10 billion from Jeff Bezos to be disbursed as grants by 2030. The foundation is committed to fighting climate change and protecting nature.

The Bezos Earth Fund provided USD 169.9 million for development in 2022 through its grantmaking activities. Compared to 2021, this amount represents a decrease of 51.7% in real terms.

In 2022, the Bezos Earth Fund channelled its development finance mostly through non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society (USD 102.8 million) and public-private partnerships (PPPs), networks and the private sector (USD 61 million).

In 2022, civil society organisations (CSOs) received USD 102.8 million of the Bezos Earth Fund’s gross development finance, all earmarked for specific projects or programmes. Most of this financing was provided to international NGOs and donor country-based NGOs.

Learn more about the DAC Recommendation on Enabling Civil Society in Development Co-operation and Humanitarian Aid.

In 2022, the Bezos Earth Fund’s development finance was primarily focused on Africa and Oceania. USD 77.2 million was allocated to Africa and USD 20 million to Oceania, accounting for 45.4% and 11.8% of gross development finance, respectively. A sum of USD 53.5 million (31.5%) was unspecified by region in 2022, mainly including multi-regional programmes and research grants.

In 2022, 55% of gross development finance went to the top 10 recipients, most notably the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Africa and Nigeria.

Least developed countries (LDCs) received USD 37.1 million (21.8%) of the Bezos Earth Fund’s gross disbursements in 2022. Upper middle-income countries (UMICs) received USD 31.8 million (18.7%), and lower middle-income countries (LMICs) USD 27.6 million (16.2%), noting that USD 73.5 million (43.3%) was unallocated by income group.

Furthermore, the Bezos Earth Fund allocated USD 13.6 million of its development finance to land-locked developing countries in 2022.

Support to fragile contexts reached USD 53.7 million in 2022, representing 31.6% of Bezos Earth Fund’s development finance. Of these, extremely fragile contexts received a sum of USD 30.3 million.

Learn more about support to fragile contexts on the States of Fragility platform.

In 2022, 53% of the Bezos Earth Fund’s contributions were allocated to economic infrastructure and services, 16% to production sectors and 31% to multi-sector and cross-cutting issues such as general environmental protection. In terms of sectors, Bezos Earth Fund’s largest allocations went to the energy sector, biodiversity conservation and agriculture, forestry and fishing.

In 2022, the Bezos Earth Fund committed the largest shares of its contributions to climate action (SDG 13), affordable and clean energy (SDG 7) and life on land (SDG 15) of the United Nations 2030 Agenda. Contributions to combatting climate change totalled USD 149.9 million.

Official website: https://www.bezosearthfund.org/

The methodological notes provide further details on the definitions and statistical methodologies applied, including core and earmarked contributions to multilateral organisations, the Sustainable Development Goal focus of private development finance, channels of delivery, unspecified/unallocated allocations, the gender equality policy marker, and the environment markers.