What's Happening
At The DIV Fund

A 2021 paper found DIV’s early portfolio yielded at least $17 in social benefit for each dollar invested, an impressive rate of return by any standard.

Brookings article notes that a “quiet revolution” is reshaping U.S. foreign assistance by elevating innovation approaches like DIV to amplify impact and catalytic funding.

Devex article reports that France plans to launch a Fund for Innovation in Development chaired by Esther Duflo, modeled on approaches like DIV to test, scale, and evaluate solutions to poverty and inequality.

CGD blog says that all three 2019 Economics Nobel laureates highlight Development Innovation Ventures as a U.S. government initiative combining experimentation, scaling, and impact-oriented aid.

Michael Kremer delivering his 2019 Nobel Prize Lecture on “Experimentation, Innovation, and Economics,” and naming Development Innovation Ventures (starting around 23:55) as an institution that crowdsources innovations and funds them for broader impact.

New York Times opinion piece argues that directly giving cash to people in poverty often outperforms traditional aid programs by letting recipients choose how best to improve their lives and discusses DIV serves as a seedbed for new ideas and rigorous evaluati

Moneyball for Government highlights the value and approach of DIV in its chapter on data and evidence in foreign assistance.

Financial Times article describes how development aid agencies are adopting Silicon Valley–style innovation strategies like those behind DIV in order to better attract and incubate new solutions.

Devex article reports that major donors have launched a new Global Innovation Fund (USD 200 million) that explicitly builds on lessons from USAID’s DIV and similar programs to support, test, and scale development innovations.