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Devex
Company typeNews organization
IndustryMedia
Founded2000; 24 years ago (2000)
Headquarters
1701 Rhode Island Avenue NW, Washington, D.C., U.S.
Key people
Raj Kumar, Alan Robbins,[1] Kate Warren[2]
Number of employees
120[3] (2020)
Websitewww.devex.com

Devex is a social enterprise and media platform for the global development community. It aims to connect with and inform development, health, humanitarian, and sustainability professionals through news, business intelligence, funding and career opportunities related to international development.[4] As an independent news organization, Devex employs more than 100 staff members in different locations, including Washington, D.C., where the organization is headquartered. It also maintains offices in Barcelona and Manila.[5]

Devex has more than 800,000 registered members within the international development community, including development organizations, donor agencies, suppliers and aid workers. The company claims to have more than 1 million active users.[6]

Devex's president and editor-in-chief, Raj Kumar, began the organization in 2000 as a student project at Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University. Kumar’s goal was to lower the administrative costs of donor agencies so they could devote a greater share of resources to foreign-assistance projects themselves.[7]

History

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Kumar in 2022

Raj Kumar founded Devex in 2000 when he was working towards a master's degree at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, after developing the digital financial newsletter Smartportfolio.com with four of his friends and selling the company to TheStreet.com.[8]

Devex expanded its media arm in 2008,[9] hiring dozens of reporters and employing freelancers worldwide. Devex produces a daily newswire covering global development news, emerging trends and issues within the development sector, and commentary and analysis from leading voices in global development.

In 2008, Devex launched the Devex Forum, an annual two-day conference that brings together the world's largest international organizations to exchange information and expertise. This includes government donor agencies, NGOs, and international corporations. The forums are held annually in East Asia, East Africa and Washington DC.[10]

In 2013, USAID and Devex together launched Devex Impact.[11] Devex Impact provides the latest partnership information, news, and tools available to companies, donors, recipient governments, implementers, NGOs, and professionals working at fields intersecting business and global development.

In 2016, Devex released the #PowerwithPurpose list that included five women who influence the world. One of the women mentioned in the list is Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria's former finance minister.[12] That same year, Devex and Foreign Affairs and the U.N. Foundation again partnered to host a White House Correspondents' Dinner event, Global Beat 2016 and Celebrating International Journalism.[13][14]

In 2017, Devex reported that the largest-ever contract awarded by USAID was facing problems that put access to health commodities at risk. The report led to a congressional hearing 9 months later.[15] In December of the same year, following the #MeToo movement campaign, Devex hosted a Twitter chat using the viral hashtag #AidToo to highlight the stories of sexual abuse and survivors of sexual assault in the humanitarian aid industry.[16]

In February 2020, Devex held Prescription for Progress, a health technology conference, where the Rockefeller Foundation and Medic Mobile announced their Medic Labs initiative.[17] Devex also hosted a conversation with Ambassador Deborah Birx where she discussed her concerns about the proposed budget cuts to the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief in 2020.[18]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Devex first reported the layoffs of one-third of the staff at the well-known NGO Oxfam on March 20, 2020. On May 22, 2020, Devex first reported the U.S. Department of State circulated a document proposing a new global health security initiative called 'The President’s Response to Outbreaks' that would consolidate international pandemic preparedness under a new State Department coordinator and establish a new central fund to fight pandemics.[19][20]

On June 6, 2020, J. K. Rowling used an opinion piece from Devex to tweet her criticism of the use of the phrase "people who menstruate" instead of "women". The viral tweet gathered many global response's from LGBT rights groups as well as the Harry Potter film actors.[21]

News coverage

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At the 2013 European Development Days in Brussels, Devex spoke to Winne Byanyima, executive director of Oxfam International, about the shifting development landscape.

While it was still in operation, Devex also regularly covered the Clinton Global Initiative, or CGI, annual meeting that convened global leaders to discuss solutions for global development challenges. In 2014, former President Bill Clinton spoke to Devex about the future of cross-sector development collaboration and partnership ahead of the CGI meeting in New York.

At the height of the Western African Ebola virus epidemic, Devex associate editor Richard Jones traveled to Guinea with the European Commissioner for International Cooperation Neven Mimica to report on European efforts to combat the epidemic. During the 2015 World Bank/International Monetary Fund Spring Meetings, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim sat down with Devex president and editor-in-chief Raj Kumar for an exclusive interview about the controversial World Bank reforms and the future of the Bank.

In May 2015, Asian Development Bank President Takehiko Nakao spoke exclusively to Devex about the merger between the Asian Development Bank and Ordinary Capital Resources.

In April 2021, Devex was the first to report UK government budget cuts for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) by 95%, from £100m to £5m, as well as funding cuts for water, sanitation, and hygiene cut by 80%.[22][23]

Devex hosted a virtual forum in May 2021 during the ongoing World Health Assembly to discuss inequalities in global COVID-19 vaccine access, such as the AstraZeneca vaccine.[24]

Services

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Devex uses content-sharing and social-networking tools to help international development professionals find information.[25] The features offered on Devex.com include a searchable database of over 700,000 professionals and a company directory listing more than 12,000 development companies.

Devex also provides its members with information about projects being funded by over 350 bilateral and multilateral donor agencies.[26] Its real-time intelligence on the development sector prompted the Washington Post to compare Devex to Bloomberg L.P.’s financial information service.[27] At any given time, the site provides details on as many as 35,000 active projects in the developing world. Devex members receive several types of reports on these activities including:

  • Tender Reports consolidating specific procurement notices from over 150 donor agencies, which are posted on 'devex.com' within 24 hours of their initial publication.
  • Project Reports provide information on opportunities presented as part of the funding for specific aid projects or programs.
  • Early Intelligence Reports use interviews with agency representatives, government officials, and other inside sources to provide Devex's Executive Members with project information that has not yet been publicly released.
  • Business Insight Articles
  • Country Pipeline Strategy Reports

References

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  1. ^ "Alan Robbins From Devex On The Media Platform For The International Development Space". Through The Noise.
  2. ^ "Jobs Without Borders". Forbes.
  3. ^ "Our Team: 120+ Star Performers Helping You Change The World, And Having a Great Time Doing It". Devex.
  4. ^ Coster, Helen. "Jobs Without Borders". Forbes. Retrieved 28 July 2015.
  5. ^ "Devex International Development | Devex".
  6. ^ "CASE STUDY: Development Executive Group".[permanent dead link]
  7. ^ Evagelia Emily (14 January 2011). "A Conversation with Raj Kumar, Co-Founder and President of Devex". Ashoka Changemakers. Archived from the original on 8 November 2019. Retrieved 1 March 2021.
  8. ^ Helen Coster (21 September 2009). "Jobs Without Borders". Forbes.
  9. ^ Kumar, Raj (2019). The Business of Changing the World: How Billionaires, Tech Disrupters, and Social Entrepreneurs Are Transforming the Global Aid Industry. Beacon Press. p. 205. ISBN 9780807059708.
  10. ^ "Global aid workers and development professionals gathered in Addis Abeba". Addis Standard. October 20, 2014. Retrieved May 29, 2023.
  11. ^ "USAID AND DEVEX ANNOUNCE LAUNCH OF DEVEX IMPACT STRATEGIC ADVISORY COUNCIL". USAID. 5 June 2013. Archived from the original on 1 July 2015. Retrieved 29 June 2015.
  12. ^ "R4D Board Member Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala Named by Devex as One of 5 Women Who Are Changing the World". Results for Development. 14 April 2016.
  13. ^ "The Global Beat 2016". Foreign Affairs. 15 July 2020.
  14. ^ "2016 White House Correspondents' Dinner". C-Span. 20 April 2016.
  15. ^ Michael Igoe (18 May 2018). "5 takeaways from the USAID supply chain hearings". The Wheels Report.
  16. ^ "Reporting #AidToo: how social media spaces empowered women in the 2018 charity scandals". The Conversation. 6 March 2020.
  17. ^ Heather Landi (24 February 2020). "Why this nonprofit is betting on a 'moonshot factory' to help developing nations". Fierce Healthcare.
  18. ^ ”A Conversation with Ambassador Deborah Birx” on YouTube
  19. ^ JASON BEAUBIEN (17 June 2020). "U.S. Mulls Controversial Foreign Aid Shake-up". NPR.
  20. ^ GABBY ORR; NAHAL TOOSI (22 May 2020). "Trump administration might consolidate pandemic response at State Department". Politico.
  21. ^ Jenny Gross (7 June 2020). "Daniel Radcliffe Criticizes J.K. Rowling's Anti-Transgender Tweets". New York Times.
  22. ^ Jennifer Rigby (April 28, 2021). "UK set to cut funding for polio eradication by 95%". Telegraph.
  23. ^ Tom Batchelor (April 28, 2021). "UK to slash aid spending on polio and clean water projects". Independent.
  24. ^ Jason Beaubien (June 1, 2021). "It's The Vaccine That's Lost A Lot Of Trusts. But AstraZeneca Still Has Its Fans". NPR.
  25. ^ "Welcome to nginx eaa1a9e1db47ffcca16305566a6efba4!185.15.56.1". Reuters. Archived from the original on 2012-09-08.
  26. ^ Hounshell, Blake (6 October 2009). "Development 2.0". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 28 July 2015.
  27. ^ Mallaby, Sebastian (3 September 2007). "Aid Goes Online: The Development World Awaits Its Bloomberg". The Washington Post. Retrieved 1 May 2010.
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