Author: Development Matters

New Approaches to Scaling Private Sector Funding for Sustainable Development

Development Matters Development finance, Non classé, SDGs ,

By Sonja Gibbs, Managing Director & Head of Sustainable Finance, IIF

This blog is part of the
OECD Private Finance for Sustainable Development Conference

Development-Finance-shutterstock_524218915Welcome to 2020–the “Decade of Delivery” for the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). While the international development community remains hard at work on solutions, success over the next decade will require addressing an “SDG financing gap” of $5-7 trillion per year, with emerging markets making up $2.5-3 trillion of that.  This will create tremendous opportunities for the private sector across the spectrum of investment vehicles—including foreign direct investment, listed and unlisted equity and private equity, in addition to the wide variety of debt instruments.  Indeed, given the massive buildup of debt over the past two decades—to over 320% of global GDP, from around 230% in 1999—a shift towards more non-debt financing could be a more sustainable approach to closing the gap.

With fewer than 10 years left to achieve the SDGs, many low-income countries remain very far off-target. At slightly above 50, the low-income countries median on the composite SDG index—which measures country-level performance in achieving the SDGs—remains well below that of either mature or emerging markets (though there is substantial variance among low-income countries). Continue reading →

Least developed countries can become authors of their technological revolution

Development Matters Human Development, policy , ,

By Ratnakar Adhikari, Executive Director of the Enhanced Integrated Framework Executive Secretariat, World Trade Organization and Fabrice Lehmann, Associate, Enhanced Integrated Framework (EIF)

SIGI-Digital-Human-RightsThe fourth industrial revolution is charting a new and uncertain course for the world economy. Least developed countries must prepare for the opportunities and risks that it brings. It is characterised by the confluence of new technologies, fusing the digital, physical and biological spheres.

Rapid technological change is expected to have a profound impact on economic and social development in countries at all levels of income. Opportunities include harnessing the possibilities of digitalisation for sustainable development and social empowerment. Risks involve marginalisation and a widening chasm between poor nations and their emerging and industrialised partners.

Can countries in the early stages of development reap the benefits and become authors of their technological revolution? Continue reading →

Time for bold initiatives to tackle inequalities and climate change

Development Matters Climate change , ,

By Filippos Pierros, Minister-Counsellor, Vice-Chair of the Development Assistance Committee and the Development Centre Governing Board [i]

Green-deal-climate-change

With the resounding failure of the UN COPs to mobilize a strong international response to climate change and inequality, concerned citizens around the world are rightly beginning to show frustration and even anger. And yet, at long last on the final year before the turn of the decade, a major high-income donor of international aid publicly proclaimed it would step up to the plate and propose radical change.

The new EU Commission promised to bring to the floor a “European Green Deal” that will drastically transform the very foundations of the EU economy. The green deal has clear implications for fighting inequalities, as well as for development. The “EU can use its influence, expertise and financial resources to mobilize its neighbors and partners to join it on a sustainable path.” The EU announces a strong “green deal diplomacy” focused on supporting sustainable development globally, engaging countries to end fossil fuel subsidies, phasing out fossil-fuel based infrastructure, investing in climate finance and climate resilience, promoting green regulations, and creating an international carbon market to provide reform incentives. Continue reading →

Where are Men in the Drive to End Violence Against Women?

Development Matters Gender , ,

Voilence-Gender-banner

By Gary Barker, President and CEO, Promundo-US

This blog is a part of the upcoming OECD High-Level Conference on Ending Violence Against Women, that will take place on 5-6 of February 2020

violence-women-stop#MeToo has led to an unprecedented global calling out of men’s use of violence against women — whether harassment, sexual assault or intimate partner violence. In addition, the last 10 years have seen advances in legal protections for survivors of violence and a massive expansion of research on what works, and what does not, to prevent gender-based violence. With all of this, men’s voices and actions, as allies, actors, and as partners in preventing gender-based violence are often either missing or silent. First, we should start by saying what we mean by gender-based violence (GBV). The phrase, while useful and necessary, often leads us to overlook the fact that we are mostly talking about men’s violence against women – harassment, sexual assault, physical, sexual, economic intimate partner violence in the home by male partners against female partners, and sexual exploitation, among others.

We now have decades of research on what drives men’s use of violence against women. Cultural and social norms that permit and encourage violence (as part of men’s domination and control of women’s lives in some settings); childhood experiences of witnessing or experiencing violence and other adverse early childhood experiences; complicity of men in power (as police, judges, policymakers) when other men use violence against women; and men’s greater economic and social power over women in many settings, are all factors. Poverty, war, displacement and the weakness or unwillingness of governments in responding to human rights violations also contribute to violence against women. It is important to affirm that all of these drivers of gender-based violence are human-made. Men’s violence against women is not wired into our genes, nor is it inevitable. It is both preventable and unacceptable. Continue reading →

Can aid help countries avoid the middle-income trap?

Development Matters Development in Transition ,

BannerWeb1122_DiT_EN_with logo DEV

By Homi Kharas, Interim Vice President and Director – Global Economy and Development, Brookings Institution

This blog is part of an ongoing series evaluating various facets
of Development in Transition

Middle-income-trapMost aid agencies have tried to articulate a “middle-income” strategy for how to support client countries that are no longer poor. For example, see the Asian Development Bank Strategy 2030 and the World Bank’s approach to middle-income countries. In both cases, there is an emphasis on second-generation challenges, including those related to environmental, social and governance institutions. Failure to meet these challenges can trap countries in middle-income status.

The problem, however, is that there is no solid theoretical or empirical foundation on how to support growth in middle-income countries—the diversity of contexts and experiences is so large that robust policy conclusions are hard to draw, and useful interventions by aid agencies even harder to figure out.

Barro (2012) succinctly summarizes the limits of empirical work: “My view is that one has to accept the idea that pinpointing precisely which X variables matter for growth is impossible.” In a similar vein, Rodrik (2012) titled his paper “Why We Learn Nothing from Regressing Economic Growth on Policies.” Most researchers (see for example Jones (2016) and Kim and Park (2017)) find that middle-income growth is all about total factor productivity growth (TFP). TFP growth, in turn, is what is left over after accounting for the growth of all inputs. Jones breaks down TFP into two components: knowledge/ideas and M that he says stands for either misallocation or a measure of ignorance. Continue reading →

Shifting public and private finance towards the Sustainable Development Goals 

Development Matters Development finance, SDGs , , ,

to build

By Paul Horrocks, Priscilla Boiardi and Valentina Bellesi, OECD Development Co-operation Directorate 

This blog is part of the upcoming OECD Private Finance for Sustainable Development Conference that will take place on 29 January 2020

dev-cooperation-puzzle-handBack in 2015, the international community committed to a shared global vision towards sustainable development – the 2030 Agenda – including 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The Goals identify the areas in which resources are most needed. But with the realisation that meeting the Goals by 2030 would require filling an annual financing gap of 2.5 trillion dollars, the Addis Ababa Action Agenda (AAAA) called upon a broader mobilisation of resources, including private ones.

Five years on, progress remains slow and uneven.

Three critical questions emerge from this context: How can we drive more resources towards the Goals? How can we make sure they are going where they are needed most?

And are they being used in the most effective way?

In order to guide the answers to those questions, we propose a three-step approach: Mobilisation, Alignment and Impact. Continue reading →

Five Takeaways on Migration and Development

Development Matters Migration ,

By Jason Gagnon, Development economist, OECD Development Centre

migration

Migration can lead to important gains for migrants, for their countries of origin and their destination. But this can only happen if migration happens under the right conditions. Destination and origin countries increasingly face common global challenges such as climate change, new technologies and long term changes in social behaviour. Furthermore, developing countries often have to manage and integrate migrant influxes themselves. All of this in a current state of an increasingly negative narrative surrounding migration. So how can migration be better managed? And what is the state of migration governance today? In between the first ever annual UN migration network meeting, and the first Global Refugee Forum (GRF), the OECD Development Centre held a debate – the Policy Dialogue on Migration and Development (PDMD) – with major players, governments, experts and policy-makers looking at the links between migration and development across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Continue reading →