MDBs for a Global Future
Broader mandates, better governance, and modern business models at the MDBs to address global challenges.
About the project
The COVID-19 pandemic and the climate crisis have instilled a fresh sense of collective urgency around the importance of protecting and investing in global public goods. CGD is conducting rigorous research and proposing practical solutions to drive broader mandates, better governance, and modern business models at the MDBs to address global challenges.

The COVID-19 global pandemic and the climate crisis already upon us are tangible manifestations of threats that until recently seemed theoretical. They have instilled a fresh sense of collective urgency around the importance of protecting and investing in global public goods (GPGs). But delivering on a GPG agenda is complicated by fissures and rivalries among major global players, tensions between the short-term “national interest” and the long-term “global interest,” and the general public’s growing skepticism about multilateralism itself.

Despite these challenges, this is not the time to invent a whole raft of new institutions. There simply isn’t enough time or the political will to dismantle the current system and start from scratch with new institutions. Instead, we need to repurpose, renew, and better deploy the international development machinery that we already have, and which has served us well over the past few decades. Multilateral development banks (MDBs) — by virtue of their size, reach and scope — are the anchor of this framework. They played a major role in helping countries reduce poverty, increase living standards, and improve health and education. Those tasks are still vitally important but to remain relevant, MDBs must have new missions and mandates, modernized governance, and reformed business and financial models to tackle the challenges of our new age.

The last century’s MDB was squarely focused on a country model that allocated resources based on national priorities. The MDB for our new age will need to be truly global. Its focus must be on helping countries work collectively on solutions to existential cross-border challenges that will determine not only the prosperity of future generations, but the habitability of the planet. This does not mean jettisoning poverty reduction or equitable growth; these issues must now be dealt with alongside global public goods and with a truly global lens. And the balance between programs targeted at global challenges and the traditional business of supporting broad based country development will need to vary between those that rely mainly on official concessional finance and those for whom official finance is one element in a broader package of international financial engagement.

Over the next year, the Center for Global Development will be conducting rigorous research and proposing practical solutions to drive broader mandates, better governance, and modern business models at the multilateral development banks.

 

Some of the GPG agenda can be accommodated within the MDB’s existing operating model, with tweaks around the margin.  For instance, supporting high-emitting coal-reliant emerging markets plan and finance their energy transitions (along the lines of the recently announced South Africa coal deal) can work in the existing MDB business model, but even this will require better MDB coordination, more effective mobilization of private sector resources, bigger volumes of financing, and, in some cases more concessional finance. It will also mean developing a series of incentives that encourage countries to use MDB resources for GPG programs.

 

A more far-reaching GPG agenda will demand some overhauls of the MDB model itself. For example, preserving major forest basins will require a big increase in global grants and an embrace of regional programming. So will meaningful action around oceans and biodiversity. Better pandemic preparedness will mean investing in a globally-networked health surveillance system that will require working directly with non-sovereign entities. Investing in major scientific breakthroughs means that the MDBs need direct funding relationships with research organizations.

 

To modernize the MDBs and to fulfill a global public goods agenda also requires a modernized MDB business model that can efficiently mobilize financing at scale and deploy a full suite of instruments from grants to guarantees across the entire range of countries it works with.

 

Here are some of the questions we will explore over the next year:

 

Broader Mandates

 

  • What GPGs should the MDB system focus on and how can they best do it?
  • How should the GPG focus vary between middle-income countries and low income country clients?
  • How can the World Bank be a climate AND development bank?
  • How can the MDBs collectively prepare for the next pandemic?
  • How can the MDBs support an energy transformation in coal-reliant emerging markets?
  • Should the GPG mission be the same across all MDBs or instead complement each other?

 

Better Governance

 

  • How can the MBDs address global challenges alongside a country based operating model? 
  • Does a GPG mandate require a different MDB governance model?
  • How can MDBs mobilize private climate finance at scale?
  • How can MDBs incentivize countries to borrow GPGs?

 

Modern Business Models

 

  • What would a green GPG capital increase look like?
  • Can the International Development Association’s equity be used for climate or GPGs?
  • Can special drawing rights help expand the climate lending pot?
  • How much grant financing is needed and how can MDBs grow the pot?

 

As the clock runs out on addressing the climate crisis and new threats loom, CGD experts – and colleagues from other organizations – will collectively tackle these topics.

 

Watch this space: What other think tanks are doing

 

Blogs

  • Reinventing Multilateral Development Banks
    The G20 under the Indian Presidency, building on the work of Italian and Indonesian predecessors, has placed these issues squarely...
  • What MDBs and DFIs Can Do Now to Scale Up Private Capital Mobilization
    Neil Gregory
    and
    MDBs and DFIs know how to originate assets in markets that other investors are unable to reach. Some have also learnt how to packa...
  • IDA and MDB Reform: The Case for Greater Ambition
    More than ever, low and lower middle-income countries (LICs and LMICs) are in a race against time. Their ambition to deliver prosp...
  • The dialogue around World Bank reform proposals has been dominated by Northern voices. But in the last week, representatives of Wo...
  • What Does World Bank Success Look Like?
    On the face of it, the case for a general capital increase for the World Bank should be obvious and urgent in our age of the polyc...
  • The World Bank Needs To Address Trade-Offs in Reform
    World Bank reform will involve tackling a set of institutional challenges, from mobilizing more financing to taking on more risk. ...
  • The Spring Meetings Will Be Disappointing for World Bank Reform, But There's More to Come
    Reform of the World Bank is in the eye of the beholder—not just how it’s going, but even what it is. With so many issues still to ...
  • Reforming the World Bank by Committing to IDA
    IDA has emerged as the largest financing arm of the World Bank Group in the last few years, and demand remains high. But IDA has n...
  • The Spring Meetings Should Launch a Climate-Dedicated IBRD Capital Increase
    The World Bank shouldn’t become a dedicated climate bank: that’s not what its client countries want, and the global development ag...
  • The World Bank Should Ramp Up Finance for Climate
    The World Bank Group Evolution Roadmap makes three financing asks of donors and shareholders: capital for IBRD, continued support ...
  • A Bigger Mission Must Mean More Financial Ambition at the World Bank
    The longer the World Bank’s biggest shareholders stay mum on the overall package of support, the higher the likelihood that we get...
  • Evolving the World Bank’s Twin Goals
    The World Bank management’s Evolution Roadmap suggests the institution is reconsidering its ‘twin goals’ mission statement of erad...
  • Centering Borrowing Country Perspectives in MDB Reform
    An effective transformation of the MDB system can’t happen from Washington alone—what emerging markets and low-income countries al...
  • What the Biden Administration Should Be Looking for in a World Bank President
    With David Malpass’s announcement on Wednesday that he will step down as president of the World Bank, the Biden Administration is ...
  • A Bank for the World?
    At a time when governments seem able to agree on very little, the consensus around the Bank’s need to scale up its engagement on c...

Publications

  • Taking Stock of MDB and DFI Innovations for Mobilizing Private Capital for Development
    Neil Gregory
    To support the 2030 Agenda, MDBs and DFIs have been asked to mobilize more private capital alongside their own investments in priv...
  • The Multilateral Development Bank for the Future
    Nadia Fettah
    Last month, CGD hosted an event with finance ministers on MDB reform, and we now continue the conversation with this reflection fr...
  • International Financial Institutions in a Time of New Challenges
    Michel Patrick Boisvert
    New challenges are emerging in developing countries, and are acute in more fragile countries. Last month, CGD hosted an event with...
  • A Bank for the World
    As one of the only truly global institutions, the World Bank is uniquely positioned to be the world’s premier source funding for g...
  • Country Platforms and Delivery of Global Public Goods
    This paper discusses three potential requirements for country platforms to facilitate effective delivery of GPGs. We propose that ...
  • Reallocating SDRs to Multilateral Development Bank
    In this note we consider the technical challenges of channeling SDRs to institutions other than the IMF that have already been app...
  • IFC 3.1?
    IFC’s board and leadership understand that meeting these goals requires a change in the way that the corporation operates, and a n...
  • Forging an MDB System: Strategy and Governance
    The need for collaboration and cooperation across the multilateral development banks (MDBs) seems obvious. Donor governments set u...
  • A Climate-Dedicated Capital Increase at the World Bank and IFC
    With a new US administration rejoining the Paris Agreement and the upcoming Glasgow climate conference set to endorse a new set of...
  • The Stretch Fund
    When the world adopted the SDGs, policymakers knew that aid alone would never meet the financing needs. They embraced the “b...

Media Mentions

  • Global Think Tanks Launch Joint Research Hub Focused on World Bank Reform
    Today, a community of think tanks from across the globe launched a joint platform to provide research and analysis to spur critica...

Events

  • Future of Development Forum
    Climate change, conflict, food insecurity, and pandemics. These global challenges are growing in urgency, and complexity—and they ...
  • Boosting MDBs’ Role in Development Finance
    In July, the G20 published the report it had commissioned from an independent panel of experts to assess MDB capital adequacy. The...
  • MDBs for a Global Future: Emerging Market Leader Perspectives
    With increasing challenges that go beyond national borders, the World Bank and other MDBs must quickly transform themselves and be...
  • Secretary Yellen on International Development and Evolving the MDBs
    WASHINGTON — On Thursday, October 6, Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen will deliver remarks in Washington on key challenge...
  • Transforming the MDB System
    How can we rethink the World Bank and other MDBs to tackle the new, global challenges facing us today? This event marks the beginn...
  • Future of Development Forum
    Climate change, conflict, food insecurity, and pandemics. These global challenges are growing in urgency, and complexity—and they ...
  • Boosting MDBs’ Role in Development Finance
    In July, the G20 published the report it had commissioned from an independent panel of experts to assess MDB capital adequacy. The...
  • MDBs for a Global Future: Emerging Market Leader Perspectives
    With increasing challenges that go beyond national borders, the World Bank and other MDBs must quickly transform themselves and be...
  • Secretary Yellen on International Development and Evolving the MDBs
    WASHINGTON — On Thursday, October 6, Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen will deliver remarks in Washington on key challenge...
  • Transforming the MDB System
    How can we rethink the World Bank and other MDBs to tackle the new, global challenges facing us today? This event marks the beginn...

Contact

For more information, contact Clemence Landers.

Contact

For more information, contact Clemence Landers.

Experts

Amanda Glassman
Amanda Glassman was the Center for Global Development's executive vice president, a senior fellow, and also served as chief executive officer of CGD Europe. Her research focused on...
Charles Kenny
Charles Kenny is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development. His current work focuses on global economic prospects, gender and development, and development finance. He is...
Clemence Landers
Clemence Landers is a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development. Prior to joining CGD, she worked at the U.S. Treasury Department on U.S. engagement with the mul...
Daouda Sembene
Daouda Sembene is a Distinguished Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Global Development. He was previously a senior economic advisor to the President of Senegal. Daouda was also...
Mark Plant
Mark Plant is the Chief Operating Officer, CEO of CGD Europe, and Senior Policy Fellow at the Center for Global Development. His appointment to CGD follows a long career at the Int...
Masood Ahmed
Masood Ahmed is president of the Center for Global Development. He joined the Center in January 2017, capping a 35-year career driving economic development policy initiatives relat...
Nancy Lee
Nancy Lee is a senior policy fellow and Director for Sustainable Development Finance at the Center for Global Development. She is also a senior advisor at the Center for Strat...
Scott Morris
Scott Morris is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development and director of the center’s US Development Policy program. His research addresses development finance issues, ...

Experts

  • Amanda Glassman
    Amanda Glassman was the Center for Global Development's executive vice president, a senior fellow, and also served as chief executive officer of CGD Europe. Her research focused on...
  • Charles Kenny
    Charles Kenny is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development. His current work focuses on global economic prospects, gender and development, and development finance. He is...
  • Clemence Landers
    Clemence Landers is a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development. Prior to joining CGD, she worked at the U.S. Treasury Department on U.S. engagement with the mul...
  • Daouda Sembene
    Daouda Sembene is a Distinguished Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Global Development. He was previously a senior economic advisor to the President of Senegal. Daouda was also...
  • Mark Plant
    Mark Plant is the Chief Operating Officer, CEO of CGD Europe, and Senior Policy Fellow at the Center for Global Development. His appointment to CGD follows a long career at the Int...
  • Masood Ahmed
    Masood Ahmed is president of the Center for Global Development. He joined the Center in January 2017, capping a 35-year career driving economic development policy initiatives relat...
  • Nancy Lee
    Nancy Lee is a senior policy fellow and Director for Sustainable Development Finance at the Center for Global Development. She is also a senior advisor at the Center for Strat...
  • Scott Morris
    Scott Morris is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development and director of the center’s US Development Policy program. His research addresses development finance issues, ...

Acknowledgments

How We're Funded

Find out more on the Center for Global Development's funding page.