Multilateral development bank policy-based guarantees (PBGs) have long been an instrument in search of demand. First introduced in 1999 at the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development to help governments access market borrowing at attractive rates, their track-record has been uneven, an...

Global gatherings from Addis Ababa to Glasgow are setting targets from climate through health and education to energy and transport that call for a lot of investment for sustainable development. But how much you can afford to invest depends on how much you’re paying for it. And that’s where the simp...

We present data on the global diffusion of technologies over time, updating and adding to Comin and Mestieri’s "CHAT" database. We analyze usage primarily based on per capita measures and divide technologies into the two broad categories of production and consumption. We conclude that there has been...

As one of the only truly global institutions, the World Bank is uniquely positioned to be the world’s premier source funding for global public goods. But despite its global coverage, the World Bank has never truly been oriented towards global challenges. Its mission has been defined primarily by ind...

The stakes are high for the African Development Fund (AfDF) as it kicks off its replenishment fundraising exercise this spring. Countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are still grappling with the health and economic fallout of the COVID-19 crisis, with over 30 million of their citizens pushed into po...

This paper explores the historical record in the development and deployment of vaccines globally and puts the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in that context. Although far more can be done and should be done to speed equitable access to vaccines in the COVID-19 response, it is worth noting the revolutionar...

The first age of pandemics followed in the wake of farming, cities and trade, because infections leverage proximity and numbers to survive and evolve. After millennia of mass mortality, followed by two centuries of progress against plagues driven by sanitary and medical revolutions, will we allow a ...