Finance

There is much to cheer about in last week’s announcement by the World Bank’s shareholders to increase its paid-in capital by $13 billion. It is a healthy signal that multilateralism is alive and well, at least in the development space. And on a practical level it is sufficient to en...

Over 1.7 billion adults worldwide remain unbanked, but two-thirds of them own a mobile phone that could easily connect them to the financial services they need. Governments could leverage digital payments to bring wages, pensions, and services directly to their beneficiaries. Private sector banks co...

There is an urgent need to change PSW business models to maintain their financial sustainability while doing much better on mobilization and development impact. Two factors are critical for meeting this challenge: enhanced risk management capability and greater flexibility regarding risk-adjusted re...

Earlier this year, The Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (“SOMO”; a Dutch NGO) issued a report about an international mining company they said had avoided paying $232 million USD in taxes in Mongolia. The Oyu Tolgoi mine is considered a big deal in Mongolia and has been s...

Last year the World Bank adopted a new “cascade” approach that intended to maximise finance for development by prioritising private solutions wherever possible. In what world would this “cascade” algorithm make sense? Without a good answer to that question, the cascade r...

Perhaps the least noticed, but most impactful, addition to the US foreign assistance toolkit in recent years has been the US sovereign bond guarantee (SBG). However, the Trump administration’s proposed FY 2019 budget leaves out any request for authorization of new SBGs—and it isn’t...

Often overshadowed by the regional powerhouses that border it, Paraguay’s recent sovereign bond issuance of $530 million was five times oversubscribed, revealing that the landlocked country of 7.5 million people warrants more attention.