GDI’s 2025 Year in Review and What’s Ahead for 2026

December 22, 2025 Global Development Incubator

Times of uncertainty call for courage and imagination. As we reflect on our work at GDI this past year, we are especially proud of the role our global organization has played in helping ensure innovative ideas have the support required to take root and drive the social impact sector forward.

While it is, without question, a time of reckoning and seismic change – with practices and institutions we once viewed trustworthy and steadfast now in sway – as an incubator, we are focusing on the pathways that disruption can open.

There are encouraging signs where local solutions are taking center stage, and investors are moving to meet them. For our part at GDI, we are committed to re-imagining systems and incubating solutions to ensure they serve the most vulnerable communities and create real opportunities for the generation ahead.

In the past six months, we’ve launched 12 new investments that are exploring solutions to eliminate lead poisoning, ramp up local climate mitigation and adaptation & resilience efforts globally, and improve equity and trust building in the U.S., among a range of other significant cross-cutting efforts in our pipeline. This is the first step toward our five-year goal to launch 30 ground-breaking solutions by 2030.

Below, we’ve invited each of our Global Partners to share their reflections from this past year and preview what they see on the horizon in 2026:

GDI Africa

In a year defined by rapid change and complexity, GDI Africa found both clarity and opportunity. Across the sector, long-held assumptions were being questioned, models challenged, and the voices closest to communities elevated. For us, this meant pausing to evaluate where systems are shifting and adjusting our approach accordingly – advancing youth pathways, ecosystem solutions, and catalytic economic innovation. Our leadership and governance also strengthened, with new Executive Directors for the Economic Development and Investment Council (EDIC) and NurtureFirst, portfolio leads in Agriculture and Finance, a Chief Operating Officer, and new voices on our Board.

The Global Opportunity Youth Network (GOYN) is now present in nine countries and 17 communities across Africa, India, and Latin America, with over 700 partners engaging more than 800,000 youth towards socio-economic wellbeing. In our three earliest Indian communities, over 60,000 youth have joined the labor force with clear pathways to government adoption. The NurtureFirst team trained more than 800 home-based childcare providers.

In Mombasa, the Tourism Innovation Lab launched ten youth-led ventures, supported 50 entrepreneurs, created 120 jobs, and earned recognition for excellence in execution. AgriAdvance piloted market-driven value chains, EDIC moved €7.5M toward potential funding, and Daraja mobilized $3.1M for six nonprofits. Across our initiatives, we continued testing commercial and investment-focused approaches, showing how catalytic funding, strong partnerships, and local innovation can unlock sustainable systems change.

As we look ahead, we carry forward both the humility this moment demands and the imagination required to build systems, policies, and innovations that drive measurable, lasting impact.

GDI Americas

Beneath this year’s many reckonings is a crisis of trust – in information, in governments, in businesses. Trust isn’t optional; it’s the bedrock that makes our collective thriving possible. And when it fails, systems fail – in health, climate, migration, housing, and education.

A crisis of trust demands more than mending – it demands reinvention. That’s the work GDI was built for. And this year, our commitment deepened in powerful ways. Alongside compelling entrepreneurs, we are:

Building an impact investing platform that will restore working forest ecosystems in British Columbia in partnership with First Nations and local communities;
Scaling a responsible AI-enabled platform that helps courts deliver timely justice in India by reducing case timelines by 30-50% – a core pillar of public trust;
Scaling an evidence-based model for bridging political divides in the U.S. and around the world — using a cooperative game designed to spark connection;
Restoring assets and dignity to Detroiters affected by one of the largest government seizures of Black wealth;
Mobilizing a movement to eliminate lead poisoning, which profoundly affects health, education, and livelihoods for one in three children in low and middle-income countries;
Opening migration pathways that multiply incomes 4-20x through blended finance.

This year, we also welcomed Hayling Price, who will lead our growing U.S. work in community wealth-building.

Here’s to rebuilding trust and reimagining the systems our communities deserve in the year ahead.

GDI South Asia

GDI South Asia is uniquely positioned to address the gap between growing global challenges and the insufficient capital flowing to innovative, systemic solutions in the region. This past year was a significant one for our work. We had the privilege of building and deepening relationships with funders, partners, board members, and collaborators in the ecosystem. Our ongoing initiatives in climate, health, and livelihoods made meaningful progress, and we launched new initiatives in the areas of AI for impact, gender, and agriculture.

A common thread across each of these was exploration, considering our local context: How do we design interventions to address core challenges and not just their symptoms? How do we amplify rather than replicate the work done by those who have come before us? And, most importantly, how do we move rapidly from idea to action and learn through doing? Several of our flagship initiatives embodied this spirit over the year:

The Resilient Water Accelerator, which aims to catalyze public and private capital to invest in climate-resilient water security opportunities, solidified its institutional architecture as an independent subsidiary of WaterAid and made significant strategic advancements in Bangladesh and Nigeria in the garments and municipal sectors, respectively. Our Grassroots Circular Waste Collaborative (GCWC) initiative, supported by IKEA Foundation and Laudes Foundation, made strides in designing a blended finance facility for nano- and micro-entrepreneurs in the waste sector.

Our health portfolio, anchored by Leapfrog to Value (L2V), has expanded in 2025 to design innovative solutions in primary healthcare and join the global effort to eliminate lead poisoning. The India value-based care coalition, facilitated by L2V, launched the first-of-its-kind strategic roadmap to shift India’s health system from volume to value.

We’re optimistic that the foundation and relationships we’re building will continue to flourish and contribute to a more equitable and resilient future for the region.

Voyage

At Voyage, GDI’s East Asia Global Partner, two initiatives stand out this year. The first initiative is reimagining an approach to urban poverty alleviation by adapting the Nobel Prize-winning graduation approach for urban settings. JC PROJECT LIFT, summarized in this report, aims to serve 14,000 families across 24 transitional housing sites in Hong Kong. The project will be evaluated through a randomized control trial that will review its longitudinal impact, including its impact on income generation, employment, savings behavior, and ultimately on poverty reduction.

The second initiative is reimagining how to grow and professionalize domestic philanthropy in Asia – increasingly relevant in a post-aid era and in a region where domestic philanthropy dwarfs cross-border philanthropy (e.g., annual domestic philanthropy estimated at ~USD 35bn in China and ~14bn in India). Voyage leads the Research Secretariat of the Commission on Asian Philanthropy. The Commission, which brings together the expertise of 13 leading philanthropic institutions in Asia, is undertaking a three-year research-to-action and institution-building effort. The Commission’s early-stage research in Asia has identified five philanthropic growth models from domestic sources across Asia: corporate-led, community-led, faith-based, state-led, and high-net-worth-individual-led. Ultimately, this Commission aims to accelerate the quantity, quality, and impact of Asian philanthropy towards more inclusive and sustainable societies.

Looking Ahead

As we look to the coming year, we remain strong believers in the capacity of the many great thinkers and doers across our sector who approach each day as another opportunity to create positive change around the world.

To our global network of partners, entrepreneurs, and team members, thank you for your conviction and your continued efforts. We look forward to an impactful 2026.

GDI / News