A CGD blog. A number of aid advocates have started (re)using the fear of migration flows to drum up support for increased, or at least sustained, development and climate finance. Their argument is that such finance will reduce migration flows that we should support and protect prosperous and sustainable econom…
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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This was an evidence submission to the UK Parliament's International Development Committee. I argue that while BII (British International Investment) has been a leader amongst development finance institutions (DFIs) in important respects, and has a strong staff and management focused on improving development outcomes, it still suffers from constraints that limit the impact of DFIs as a whole in supporting sustainable development, especially in the poorest countries. Like other DFIs, BII is unable to mobilize significant capital by crowding in private finance to its investments, its efforts to create new markets for private finance have had limited success and its use of subsidized capital has been inefficient.
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A CGD blog. The post-conference statement from the recently concluded Paris Summit for A New Global Financing Pact undercuts the calculations at the core of the idea we could take billions of multilateral finance and ODA to mobilize trillions of private investment for climate and development. If the Paris Summi…
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A CGD blog. An interesting paper (and podcast) by Francis Fukuyama and Michael Bennon look at China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and recent debt distress in BRI project countries, building on work by Scott Morris and co-authors that examined 100 Chinese debt contracts with foreign governments. BRI has invol…
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A CGD blog. Subsequent statements and declarations made it fairly clear that all $100 billion was meant to be new and additional -presumably ‘new and additional’ to existing financial transfers to developing countries. But there is no consensus definition of “new and additional climate finance.” That raises th….
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A CGD blog. In the fight for more capital for climate at the World Bank Group, we should focus on the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development alone.
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A CGD blog. “Embrace mediocrity and accept the unoriginal” may not sound like a great rallying cry for World Bank staff, but if we really want the institution to ramp up lending for renewable power and low-carbon transport, it might be the call we need.
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A CGD blog. That said, there are reasons to doubt that a declining working age population would have a long-term effect on prices. They are based on an argument that economists have long made when it comes to migration into economies where the domestic labor force was still expanding, termed the “lump of labor …
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A CGD blog with Kenneth Lay. At the Spring Meetings of the World Bank, a range of shareholders repeated their call for multilateral development banks (MDBs) to do more, particularly with regard to climate finance. At the same time, client countries are demanding these institutions preserve their core mandate to support developm…
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A CGD blog with Charles Kenny. Last week, leaders from around the world gathered in Washington, DC to discuss the global economic situation, a looming debt crisis, and the future of the international financial institutions. Here are some of CGD experts’ takeaways on the highs and lows.
Charles Kenny 