Ideas to Action:
Independent research for global prosperity
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.
Early this month, CGD co-hosted a conference with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), highlighting progress, challenges, and lessons learned from the first phase of the Salud Mesoamerica Initiative (SMI), a seven-year-old results-based funding (RBF) partnership between donors and national governments in health. Uniquely, the event brought together country governments, external funders, intermediaries, and evaluators—from different stages of the program—to discuss motivations, results, issues, and lessons learned.
The Multiannual Financial Framework 2021-2027—which is currently underway—will largely determine the future post-Brexit UK-EU relationship on development post-Brexit.
Demand for development finance as a key complement to traditional aid is growing, but despite the impressive strength of the US private sector, the US government’s ability to respond—to date— has fallen short. The good news: Congress got the memo.
A growing number of humanitarian aid organizations operating in conflict zones are having trouble finding banks willing to work with them. We attended an international stakeholder dialogue on ensuring financial services for nonprofit organizations, and offer our preliminary thoughts here.
In a new CGD paper, we assess the likelihood of debt problems in the 68 countries we identify as potential BRI borrowers. The big takeaway: BRI is unlikely to cause a systemic debt problem, yet the initiative will likely run into instances of debt problems among select participating countries—requiring better standards and improved debt practices from China.
Debt relief wiped away much of Africa's sovereign debt, but after a decade of growth, debt stocks are rising again. Here's a look at the numbers, and how we got here again.
In advance of adopting a new Policy on Public Information, the AIIB is inviting suggestions on how it could best align public disclosure with its guiding principles of “promoting transparency, enhancing accountability and protecting confidentiality.” The adoption of the new policy provides AIIB President Jin Liqun and the AIIB shareholders an opportunity to demonstrate that this newest of multilateral development banks (MDBs) is serious about its commitment to adopting international best practices. I identified a number of actions that the AIIB could take to improve its disclosure practices. Here are my top three recommendations:
Moving beyond low income countries makes sense for an institution focused on ending extreme poverty. But does the IFC follow through by focusing on the countries that are home to the extreme poor? Not really.
Many of the world’s poorest countries in sub-Saharan Africa have shown they can reform and improve governance. But the momentum is fizzling out. In a new round of tough reforms, African leaders will need to do the heavy lifting. Africa is still poor, and not yet able to finance the investments critical to a new round of growth and poverty reduction. Here’s what donors could do.
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