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I4DI has been engaged by Dubai Holding to build the monitoring, evaluation, and learning system for their philanthropic portfolio across the UAE and East Africa.
The UAE’s Federal Decree Law No. 11 of 2024 made climate action frameworks mandatory, covering emissions measurement, reporting, and oversight. All listed companies now face ESG disclosure requirements under the Securities and Commodities Authority. At COP28, the banking sector committed to mobilizing AED 1 trillion in sustainable finance by 2030, and the numbers suggest they mean it. ESG-linked loans grew 15 percent last year. By mid-2025, UAE banks had facilitated roughly $23 billion in green transactions.
Philanthropic capital isn’t exempt. At the February 2026 World Governments Summit, Dubai Chambers convened more than 40 senior family business leaders to work through how philanthropic portfolios should be governed and measured. PwC puts family business contributions to Dubai’s GDP at AED 491.8 billion in 2024. Most of these organizations don’t yet have measurement systems that match what they’re deploying.
Dubai Holding manages more than AED 280 billion in assets across 10 sectors and over 30 countries. Philanthropy is one of four pillars in its 2022 sustainability strategy, governed by a dedicated committee evaluating investments against UN SDG criteria. The CEO chairs a quarterly forum on environmental and social performance. And in 2024, the company adopted a Responsible Investment Policy aligned with UN PRI. They were a Principal Pathway Partner at COP28, hosted over 50 presentations there, and their Innovate for Tomorrow accelerator pulled in more than 1,400 submissions from 93 countries for the 2025 cohort.
What We’re Building
We’re designing and running the evidence and learning system for Dubai Holding’s philanthropic investments across the UAE and East Africa. The full architecture, from Theory of Change and results frameworks through standardized data collection, interactive dashboards at portfolio and project level, quarterly monitoring with in-person field verification, and annual impact reporting in English and Arabic. Dubai Holding’s team and their partners will be trained to operate it on their own.
For over a decade, I4DI has been building evidence and intelligence systems for US government, European governments, UN agencies, the World Bank, and others. The Dubai Holding engagement is our first in the Gulf, and it comes at a moment when the region’s largest philanthropic investors are realizing they need the same rigor in their social portfolios that regulators already demand on the commercial side.
