Global challenges of poverty, health, and climate change are increasingly being addressed by new types of actors – philanthropic foundations, public-private partnerships, corporations, and social enterprises. These organizations, such as the Gates Foundation, are significantly changing how states, NGOs, and multilateral agencies, which have traditionally dominated international development, conceptualize and do their work. By providing massive private financing for global public goods, the new actors confound existing categories of public/private and profit/non-profit, and don’t easily fit into existing frameworks of international governance and political economy. While they represent some historical continuities, the new players are distinct from old charities that were associated with giving to traditional causes such as hospitals and museums. The new philanthropies don’t just write checks – they are self-conscious about wanting to re-shape the field of development by redefining problems of poverty, disease and deprivation. This course aims to understand the politics, ethics, and knowledge production associated with the changing ecology of sustainable development. It will examine the major debates around philanthropic actors and their impacts on fields such as of global health and climate change. It will ask how these actors conceptualize global problems. Are they formulating new interventions? Are they introducing new norms and new practices in development, global governance and democratic accountability? How are they changing the traditional roles of the state and civil society?