Last week we were the media partner at the Global Inclusive Growth Summit hosted by the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth. The conference focused on how access to financial services are key to helping drive global development in low- and middle-income countries.  During one of the events, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley stressed the importance of debt restructuring in order to help low- and middle-income countries overcome health and climate change challenges. We discuss the value of cash transfers for building resilience to crises by providing money to those in need quickly and ..read more

As finance ministers and central bank governors from the G20 nations concluded their recent meetings, concerns over the pace and stability of global economic recovery took center stage. In an exclusive conversation with Achim Steiner, the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), key insights emerged regarding the discussions surrounding coordination, the global financial architecture, and pressing challenges facing developing economies ..read more

The World Bank and International Monetary Fund are trying to evolve and prove they are fit for purpose, but the jury is out on just how far that evolution process has gone.  While numerous announcements were made at the World Bank-IMF Spring Meetings last week in Washington D.C., the pace of reform is too slow, according to several experts. “The rhetoric in terms of the important pronouncements that have been made are saying the right things, but they're not giving you the next three things that could get done in the next month, in the next three months, in the next six months, in the n ..read more

How can the World Bank play a role in attracting more private capital to address development and climate needs? That is a challenge that World Bank President Ajay Banga has prioritized and was a key discussion in Washington, D.C., last week at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund Spring Meetings. From a Private Sector Investment Lab charged with helping the bank identify and scale what already works to a new loan guarantee platform and plans to bundle and sell some International Finance Corporation investments to private investors, changes are afoot.  But there are questions a ..read more

This week we are closely following the World Bank and International Monetary Fund Spring Meetings taking place in  Washington, D.C. From having a capital increase to provide funding for the world's low-income countries to how the financial institution can support the fight against climate change, we dig into the key conversations we’re following at the conference.  In addition to increasing risk appetite to encourage private capital mobilization, we argue that multilateral development banks, as well as organizations under the World Bank Group umbrella should be collaborating better ..read more

The World Bank is about 18 months into its efforts to reform the institution in response to shareholder demands and changing global needs. From stretching its existing funding to attracting more private capital, the bank has laid a laundry list of proposals on the table. So what has been accomplished thus far and what more is needed? That’s what we tackle in the first episode of a special edition podcast during this year’s World Bank and International Monetary Fund Spring Meetings, which take place in Washington D.C. this week. The bank has a new capital adequacy framework to g ..read more

As the war in Gaza stretches past the six-month mark, this week we had an exclusive story on Israel’s efforts to disrupt and dismantle UNRWA, the United Nations agency leading the humanitarian response for Palestinians. The agency — caught in a political war — was forced to ground its fleet of trucks, cars, and security specialists used by other U.N. agencies delivering support to those affected by the conflict.  We have also been closely following the conversations around localization. A few months ago, a rural Sierra Leone-based nonprofit leader was unable to get a visa to a ..read more

Last week, we launched Roots of Change, a Devex series on locally led development, which explores how the localization agenda can be elevated from rhetoric to reality. We have been following the discussions around localization for the past couple of years and the progress made toward empowering local communities in shaping global development initiatives. As part of the series, we published an article that outlines five key takeaways we learned about the current state of the debate based on our coverage. We highlight that while progress is slow, change is inevitable.  At the Inter-America ..read more

This week, we reported that at the Employees at the International Foundation for Electoral Systems — a 37-year-old pro-democracy organization based outside Washington, D.C. — employees formed a new staff union to confront their organization’s president and CEO over labor rights. The issue is entangled within the wider debates of localization. While employees most certainly want to provide technical support to local partners, they do not believe that the process should undervalue the employees who provide it.  At the end of last week, The Locally Led Development and Humanitarian Response ..read more

Last week, USAID unveiled its latest $5 billion global health supply contract, part of its NextGen suite of contracts. Worth $17 billion in total, it’s the largest suite of foreign aid contracts ever issued, to be delivered over the course of 10 years. But despite all the talk around localization, it’s highly likely the contracts will end up going to the usual industry players. “Most of the low- or middle-income countries, they can do without those USAID-funded contractors coming to do things for them,” said Olusoji Adeyi, president of Resilient Health Systems and a staunch advocate for the d ..read more