Author: Development Matters

Participants of the Ultra-Poor Graduation program utilize technology to ensure financial literacy best practices in Rangpur, Bangladesh (BRAC 2018)
New social contract

Opinion: The World Bank’s Evolution Is a Chance to Accelerate the End of Extreme Poverty

By Shameran Abed, Executive Director, BRAC International and Joanne Carter, Executive Director, RESULTS/RESULTS Educational Fund

The World Bank is evolving, but can it widen its mandate without losing focus on ending extreme poverty?

Cascading crises that include COVID-19, the Ukraine war, rising inflation, and climate extremes are making the fight against poverty ever more complex. Presented with this shifting landscape, we must support the World Bank’s efforts to evolve to better support governments in driving sustainable development.

However, in a world where lack of prioritisation over recent years has already led to a slowing of poverty reduction, the Bank must ensure its evolutions do not result in losing further momentum towards this goal.

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Development Matters
SDG summit-development matters
Français, Reviving multilateralism

Une ambition renouvelée pour la coopération pour le développement à l’OCDE

Par María del Pilar Garrido Gonzalo, Directrice de la coopération pour le développement à l’OCDE

Read this blog in English

Le récent sommet de Paris pour un Nouveau Pacte Financier Mondial a tourné une page de la coopération pour le développement écrite en 1944 à Bretton Woods. Créés alors, la Banque internationale pour la reconstruction et le développement (BIRD) et le Fonds monétaire international (FMI) avaient un champ d’action limité pour un monde qui comptait moins d’une centaine de pays indépendants. Les priorités étaient la reconstruction de l’Europe et l’équilibre des balances de paiements, comme en témoigne le prêt pionnier de la BIRD à la France. Depuis, le monde a considérablement évolué, avec plus de 150 pays aspirant au statut de pays à revenu élevé, plus de 650 millions de personnes en situation d’extrême pauvreté, et des défis urgents liés au changement climatique et à la perte de biodiversité.

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Development Matters
SDG summit-development matters
Reviving multilateralism

A renewed ambition for development co-operation at the OECD

By María del Pilar Garrido Gonzalo, Director, Development Co-operation directorate, OECD

The recent Paris Summit for a New Global Financing Pact turned a page of the development co-operation history that was written in Bretton Woods in 1944. Back then, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) were founded with a limited scope, catering to a world of fewer than a hundred independent countries. The focus was on Europe’s reconstruction and balance of payments, illustrated by France’s pioneering IBRD loan. However, the landscape has drastically changed, with over 150 countries striving for high-income status, more than 650 million people in extreme poverty, and urgent challenges stemming from climate change and biodiversity loss.

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informality social contract dialogue
New social contract

Social contracts and social dialogue: A missing link

By Laura Alfers, Director, Social Protection Programme, WIEGO – Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing

Social contracts – the implicit agreements between citizens, the state, workers and enterprises on how to distribute power and resources in pursuit of common goals – are leaving too many workers around the globe without access to social or labour protections. And, while much of the debate about how best to provide these protections focuses on issues like financing, appropriate regulation and policy design – something central to the process of social contract formation is often left out or emerges as an afterthought. That is social dialogue.  

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LDC graduation Cambodia development matters
Building resilience

LDC Graduation: Stories of smooth transition

 By Ratnakar Adhikari, Executive Director of the Enhanced Integrated Framework Executive Secretariat at the World Trade Organization 

Of the 46 least developed countries (LDCs), 16 are at different stages of graduation. And, though graduation offers many opportunities, it also presents its own unique challenges for countries in this category. As such, various international support measures (ISMs) have been put in place, or extended, to ensure smoother transitions and sustained developmental progress in the post-graduation phase.

Two key concerns for LDCs following graduation involve: preferential market access for export, and development assistance, such as concessional financing.

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Development Matters
Multilateral development banks
Building resilience

Getting the balance right between ideas and operations in Multilateral Development Banks

By Rabah Arezki, director of research at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), senior fellow at the Foundation for Studies and Research on International Development (FERDI) and Harvard Kennedy School, former Chief Economist and Vice President at the African Development Bank and former Chief Economist at the World Bank’s Middle East and North Africa region.

Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) have been in the news a lot lately. Leaders have called upon them to step up and help solve some of the world’s most pressing problems such as climate change, the debt crisis and fragility. The discussion on increasing the lending volume committed by MDBs has been at the centre of the policy agenda. But to achieve impact, MDBs must get the balance right between ideas and operations. 

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Gender discriminations in social institutions Index - SIGI
Gender, Women and Girls, New social contract

Breaking the chains: how to overcome gender biases for true equality

By Pierre de Boisséson, Economist, and Hyeshin Park, Gender Programme Co-ordinator, OECD Development Centre

 We all have biases when it comes to gender roles. From pre-conceived ideas about the kinds of roles men and women take on at home to the types of jobs for which they are suited. Shockingly, a significant portion of the population believes that men should have more rights and opportunities than women. While easily overlooked, these outdated ideas actually have staggering socio-economic ripple effects – limiting women’s agency and costing societies billions, if not trillions, of dollars in lost GDP.

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Climate risk africa economy development matters
Africa, Green transition

What does Climate Risk really mean for African economies?

By Anzetse Were, Development Economist and Senior Economist, FSD Kenya

Discussions on green and climate finance in Africa often dwell on two issues. The first is why it’s so difficult to scale-up this type of financing on the continent. The second is the issue of layered risk: some are not keen to layer ‘ESG’ risk on top of ‘Africa’ risk in investments.

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Africa sport investment development matters
Africa, Français, New social contract

Investir dans l’industrie du sport en Afrique : un levier de développement inexploité

Par Will Mbiakop, Président exécutif, African Sports and Creative Institute et Federico Bonaglia, Directeur adjoint, Centre de développement de l’OCDE

Le marché du sport représente aujourd’hui environ 5 % du PIB mondial, avec une croissance annuelle de 4 % à l’échelle mondiale entre 2015 et 2020. L’écrasante majorité de cette richesse est cependant concentrée en Amérique du Nord et en Europe, et certaines régions du globe restent sur la touche. Pour réaliser le potentiel inexploité de l’industrie du sport comme levier de développement en Afrique, il faut faire connaitre les opportunités économiques qu’elle recèle, tout en améliorant le cadre général de l’investissement, le sujet au cœur du rapport Dynamiques du développement en Afrique 2023 : Investir dans le développement durable.

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Development Matters
refugee climate environment development matters. Photo-Sebastien Goldberg-unsplash
Français, Migration, New social contract

Les politiques d’adaptation au changement climatique doivent prendre en compte les déplacements forcés

Par Jason Gagnon, Chef d’unité, Migration et compétences, Centre de développement de l’OCDE, et Jens Hesemann, Conseiller principal en politiques, Direction de la coopération pour le développement de l’OCDE

Un ensemble de facteurs interdépendants poussent les populations à se déplacer de force. Parmi ces facteurs, les effets du changement climatique ont aujourd’hui une importance qu’ils n’avaient pas lors de l’élaboration de la Convention relative au statut des réfugiés en 1951.  Conséquence : les personnes déplacées aujourd’hui par les effets du changement climatique n’entrent pas dans le champ d’application de la Convention. 

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Development Matters