A CGD blog. What’s the best way for a think tank fellow to demonstrate they’re washed up? Say there’s no need for new policy. And yet… This year, donors will negotiate the replenishment of the World Bank’s soft lending arm, IDA. World Bank president Ajay Banga wants to the replenishment amount to be the bigge…

A CGD blog. The World Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group has just issued a “Focused Assessment” of the IDA Private Sector Window, looking at the PSW’s first five years of operation. The PSW, launched in 2018, uses $5.6 billion of World Bank IDA financing to subsidize IFC and MIGA investments in the private sec…

A CGD blog. More than 60 countries have data localization measures in place that restrict or prohibit the flow of certain types of data across their borders to other jurisdictions. A new CGD working paper by David Medine makes clear that these restrictions may have their greatest impact on smaller economies inc…

A CGD blog. This year’s, COP, the big UN climate conference, opened with the Independent High-Level Expert Group in Climate Finance saying trillions of dollars were required annually for developing countries to meet climate goals, the ONE campaign documenting that donors had utterly failed to deliver on their e…

A CGD blog with Eeshani Kandpal. Multilateral Development Banks say that diversity matters to development. But how do these institutions perform when it comes to their own staff do they lead by example? Sadly, looking at gender equality in particular, the picture is still mixed.

A CGD blog. For all of the well-advertised risks of overdependence on subsoil assets, they are an important source of government revenues and well-renumerated employment for a number of low- and middle-income countries. But a global economy moving towards low-carbon production is going to dramatically shift dem…

A CGD blog. International finance is under considerable pressure: originally prioritized toward economic growth in poorer countries, it is now meant to deliver broad-based sustainable development including global public goods such as climate and pandemic response-to say nothing of refugee hosting costs. In a fu…

A CGD blog. Our new paper forecasts global structural transformation over the next thirty years. It shouldn’t come as a great surprise that it suggests the planetary shift toward services employment and out of both agriculture and manufacturing will continue. But it does suggest something many find might novel …

A CGD blog. World Bank president Ajay Banga’s declared strategy is to lead with a better bank before pushing for a bigger bank. I hope it works. His shoutout to the dribs of finance offered by Germany and the US toward guarantees and hybrid capital in his Annual Meetings speech today only served to emphasize…

A CGD blog. As the World Bank and IMF meetings wrap up in Morocco, hopes for an imminent revolution in multilateral finance look forlorn. A dollar of capital can support five dollars of lending at the IBRD and the costs of subsidized finance for the poorest countries through IDA are shared amongst more than fif…