A CGD blog. So: how do donor governments actually use their subsidies to the private sector to support mitigation and development projects around the world? The process usually starts with a private company (the project sponsor) asking a development finance institution (DFI) like the World Bank Group’s Internat…
Charles Kenny
Books, Papers and Articles
Charles Kenny writes about global development — what’s working, what isn’t, and how the world can do better. An economist who spent fifteen years at the World Bank, he is now a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington, DC.
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A CGD blog. In a new note, I suggest there’s little evidence that aid (official development assistance, or ODA) spent on climate mitigation is actually reducing emissions. That’s not to say the finance is wasted: much will have been spent on projects with considerable development impact and some, surely, reduce…
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A CGD blog. There is some good news on global climate change. The International Energy Agency suggests we are “at the beginning of the end” of the fossil fuel era, with ‘peak fossil’ likely this decade. And the consensus amongst climate modelers appears to be that the worse scenarios historically used by the IP…
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A CGD blog. I said in an earlier blog that I thought IDA is the world’s most effective source of external finance for overall development in its poorest countries. Perhaps it’s worth setting out the evidence for that in a little more detail.
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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.
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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…
Charles Kenny 