Why we’re watching: British aid has suffered a brutal two years, with major aid cuts as the Department for International Development merged with the Foreign & Commonwealth Office to form the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. As FCDO prepares to release its international development strategy, the world’s oldest bilateral development finance institution is undergoing reforms.

Leadership: Nick O’Donohoe, CEO.
Staff: Over 500.
Notable hire: Newly appointed Chair Diana Layfield. She is the former president of European, Middle Eastern, and African partnerships at Google and CDC Group’s first female chair in its 73-year history.
$: $1.57 billion committed in 2020.
HQ: London.
Tidbit: British International Investment will be CDC Group’s new name this year. But this isn’t its first name change: The institution was created in 1948 as the Colonial Development Corporation and used that name until 1963.
Follow: Will Worley, Adva Saldinger, and Devex Invested.

Analysis: Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government has not been shy about expressing its skepticism around British aid policy of old, and many in the development sector fear that what hasn’t been cut from the budget will be increasingly directed by foreign and trade policy goals. That’s why there are worries about the change in strategy at the DFI, which the government says is more than merely a name change. Just as the Trump administration used bipartisan anti-China sentiment to birth a larger DFI — the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation — and the European Union has sought to remake its own development finance to more directly counter China, a similar approach could be at play here. The rebranded group is planning more investment in the middle-income countries of the Indo-Pacific and Caribbean regions and aims to take more advantage of London’s position as a financial center. — RK.

→ Back to 22 global development organizations to watch in 2022