In the face of sudden economic shocks and natural disasters that limit the ability of economies to rapidly raise revenue, MDBs have the potential to play a leading role in crisis response to minimize the damage. One key factor in their success in this role is the speed of their financing instruments...

Last year at this time, the World Bank announced its intention to provide $104 billion in financing to developing country governments to help them respond to the COVID-19 crisis. We took stock of those efforts seven months ago. More than a year into the pandemic, it’s time to check in again on the B...

With a new US administration rejoining the Paris Agreement and the upcoming Glasgow climate conference set to endorse a new set of national commitments to greenhouse gas emissions, there is renewed momentum in the struggle to limit climate change and its global impact. But global finance to support ...

We examine the behavior of Chinese government lenders in two debt rescheduling episodes: a “low stakes” case involving Seychelles and a “high stakes” case involving the Republic of Congo. The fact that the Republic of Congo was worse off after rescheduling its debts with Beijing underscores the impo...

The World Bank’s non-concessional borrowing (NCBP) policy for IDA countries was introduced in 2006 following major rounds of debt relief and debt cancellation for a large subset of these countries through the Heavily Indebted Poor Country Initiative and the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative.

This note proposes a new Research Ventures Fund (RVF) at the World Bank to better prioritize R&D investments in support of development progress. The RVF would employ financing mechanisms that are consistent with research needs: significant scale and scope, patience, and tolerance for failure. Ex...

Private sector development has long been viewed as essential for economic growth in developing countries, and the US role in promoting it has focused mostly on how developing country governments could best set a policy environment that made it possible. But let’s consider the risks of con...