Factors like borrowing costs and access to alternative sources of finance will likely limit country demand for World Bank climate mitigation finance absent financial incentives, which could prove costly and difficult to resource at the scale needed to have meaningful impact. There's a risk that thes...

Developing countries strongly emphasize enhancing foundational reading skills, with the expectation that such improvements will catalyze the development of new cognitive abilities and lead to improved life outcomes. However, the relationship between early educational gains and later-life achievement...

There is substantial evidence that cost-sharing in medical care constrains total health spending. However, there is relatively little (and unclear) evidence on its health effects, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. This paper re-evaluates the link between outpatient cost-sharing and h...

Marginal abatement cost curves, which suggest the cheapest approaches to reducing carbon emissions, are out of favor in international climate finance discussions because they are not good tools to use when thinking about systemic and urgent change. On the other hand, international financing studies ...

The first SDG4 target is to both expand access to universal secondary school and to ensure that all children achieve minimum learning outcomes in primary school. To the extent that action must be prioritized, this article argues that achieving universal secondary education is both more feasible at s...

Women’s credit constraints are related to gender differentials at the levels of the individual, the household, or the community. While constraints at the individual level tend to erase as women increase their wealth and business experience to match those of men, constraints that emerge from women’s ...

This note argues that the United Kingdom (UK), working within old and new coalitions, should take a more strategic approach to the aims and funding of a leading cluster of major multilateral funding institutions. It sets out the UK’s role within multilaterals, the key reform issues and how to treat ...