Ideas to Action:
Independent research for global prosperity
Overall public debt in IDA countries has risen rapidly since before the global financial crisis; and while debt to private creditors (mostly in the form of bonds or bank loans) has increased, the biggest increases have come from multilateral and official bilateral credits.
As part of their efforts to contain the economic, social, and political fallout from the COVID-19 crisis, many African countries have announced large fiscal stimulus packages. But planned fiscal responses will need to be crafted with caution to be most effective.
COVID-19 has become the biggest stress test in decades for international cooperation. Will donors be able to deliver effective, sustainable development for the world’s poor while also scrambling to support health systems cope with this crisis?
Non-medical masks are a comparatively affordable intervention that could be rolled out at scale in developing countries, were WHO guidance to change. At the moment, apparel firms in developing countries have considerable spare capacity because of cancelled orders. Taking all of this into account, we propose donor support for local cloth mask manufacture and—if WHO guidance were to change—free distribution.
We are so accustomed to the Chinese government’s lack of transparency that the opaqueness of China’s overseas loans seems unremarkable at this point. But as we face what inevitably looks like a global debt crisis, one that is likely to hit low-income countries particularly hard, a clear accounting of the scale of the problem is critical.
This is a crisis of truly global scale and it will place enormous constraints on traditional humanitarian operations.
Dozens of low- and middle-countries (LMICs) have now implemented stringent policies to slow the spread of COVID-19 in communities, in an effort to flattern the curve. Yet flattening the curve comes at a cost–it also flattens the economy
The COVID-19 response amounts to a significant expansion in the scale and scope of direct cash transfers as well as other social assistance—a huge increase in government-to-people (G2P) payments. As we explain in our new report, delivering on these programs will require an enormous increase in the capacity of states to implement them.
Gender gaps in participation in the labor force, entrepreneurship, pay, share of senior management, and executive board positions–as well as access to finance, markets, and skills–have been well documented. But how far do development finance providers truly support gender equality?
The drumbeat of advice seems constant: countries must focus all efforts on suppressing the current COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, regardless of expense or impact on the broader economy. But no country, no matter how wealthy, has unlimited resources to throw at this crisis.
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