The Global Majority Giving Initiative (GMGI) is an evidence-led programme exploring how Global Majority donors, philanthropists and impact investors are reshaping the future of global aid. Through research, policy engagement and a community of practice, it examines how evolving financing models can contribute to a more legitimate, inclusive and equitable global aid architecture.
The Global Majority Giving Initiative is an evidence-led programme that brings the strategies, experiences and perspectives of Global Majority donors, philanthropists and impact investors into debates on the future of global aid.
The initiative asks how Global Majority giving can help shift power, legitimacy and agenda-setting within the global aid architecture. It examines the evolving role of Global Majority giving in the aid system and how it is responding to geopolitical, fiscal and institutional uncertainty.
As traditional donors reduce, redefine or redirect their development and humanitarian commitments, urgent questions are emerging: who will finance global public goods, whose priorities will shape the next phase of reform, and what forms of cooperation can respond credibly to overlapping global crises?
The initiative focuses on three interconnected financing spheres: donorship, philanthropy and impact investing. It is composed of three workstreams: a community of practice, a policy and influencing programme and a research and data programme. It explores how Global Majority governments, philanthropic organisations and impact investors are positioning themselves within a rapidly changing aid landscape, and whether the current "aid reset" presents a genuine opportunity to rebalance power, legitimacy and agenda-setting within the global aid architecture – or simply reproduces existing inequalities in new forms.
The initiative is led by Dr. Sherine El Taraboulsi-McCarthy, Director of the Global Majority Giving Initiative (GMGI) and visiting researcher of the RCPP, and co-led by Prof. Lilian Miles, Professor of Sustainability and Social Enterprise and Co-Director of the RCPP.
Objectives
- Assess how geopolitical and fiscal shifts are altering the incentives, constraints and opportunities facing Southern donors, philanthropic institutions and impact investors.
- Examine how these actors understand the current aid or humanitarian reset, and whether this language captures or obscures deeper questions of power, responsibility and legitimacy.
- Identify distinctive financing practices, partnership models and cooperation modalities associated with donorship, philanthropy and impact investing.
- Consider what a more plural, legitimate and accountable global aid architecture would require.
Publications
- The unbearable lightness of humanitarian reform: Reflections on calls for change in the sector - El Taraboulsi‐McCarthy - 2025 - Disasters - Wiley Online Library
- Global Majority donorship vs. aid cuts: What it is, what it isn’t, and what it could become - Alliance magazine
Forthcoming: Commitments in search of purpose? Jiu-jitsu politics, the Global Partnerships Conference and Britain’s muddled role in a transitional order (Bond, 2026)
Events
Forthcoming: UCL Public Event, Financing Change amid Uncertainty: Reimagining the Future of Global Majority Giving, 5 November 2026.
UN Sustainable Development Goals alignment
- Goal 17: Partnerships for the Goals
- Goal 10: Reduced Inequalities
- Goal 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
For more information about this project please contact:
- Dr Sherine El Taraboulsi-McCarthy [email protected]
- Professor Lilian Miles [email protected]