Category: Reviving multilateralism

Multilateral development system
Reviving multilateralism

Three challenges threatening the multilateral development system and possible solutions

By Abdoulaye Fabregas, Economist, Jieun Kim, Policy Analyst, OECD Development Co-operation Directorate, and Olivier Cattaneo, Head, Policy Analysis and Strategy Unit, OECD Development Co-operation Directorate, and Adjunct Professor, Paris School of International Affairs in SciencesPo

Halfway into the implementation timeframe of Agenda 2030, the multilateral development system is under growing pressure, faced with the continued fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing war launched by Russia against Ukraine. The war has aggravated global inflationary pressures; food and energy prices are soaring, threatening the livelihoods of the most vulnerable. This week, the UN launched a record USD 51.5 billion humanitarian appeal for 2023. In this challenging context, our new report shows that the multilateral development system is confronting three paradoxes.

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Development Matters
debt
Africa, Reviving multilateralism

Why today’s debt crisis requires a different kind of thinking

By David McNair, Executive Director for Global Policy at The ONE Campaign and Non-Resident Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Daouda Sembene, CGD Distinguished Nonresident Fellow and AfriCatalyst CEO

African countries have more than doubled their debt stocks in the last decade. In an era of historically low interest rates that made sense, given the continent’s massive infrastructure needs, high security spending and rising social expenditure driven by a rapidly growing population. But that era is now over. 

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Development Matters
Ukraine wheat food exports
Reviving multilateralism

Preventing developing economy debt disasters

By Rabah Arezki, Former Chief Economist and Vice President at the African Development Bank, Former Chief Economist of the World Bank’s Middle East and North Africa Region and Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School & Mahmoud Mohieldin UN Special Envoy for Financing the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. 

The world’s breadbasket is being wrecked by war. Ukraine and Russia account for 30% of global wheat and barley exports and are leading exporters of other grains. The two countries are also the source of nearly 70% of the world’s sunflower oil exports, while Russia accounts for 13% of all crude petroleum exports. As the conflict in Ukraine rages and sanctions on Russia escalate, food and energy prices – which were rising even before Russia invaded Ukraine – are spiking in countries far away from the front lines, with devastating implications for the world’s most vulnerable communities.

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Development Matters
Reviving multilateralism

Support to Ukrainian refugees and official development assistance

By Haje Schütte, Senior Counsellor and Head, Financing for Sustainable Development Division, Development Co-operation Directorate, OECD

In the first week of the Ukraine war, roughly 6,000 people crossed the border into neighbouring countries every hour. This sort of displacement is unprecedented in modern day Europe. At the time of writing, two thirds of Ukraine’s refugees, mostly women and children, are hosted by Poland, Hungary and the Slovak Republic. 

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Development Matters
Reviving multilateralism

The IMF and the capital account: Another step forward but still out of step

By Kevin P. Gallagher, Professor and Director of the Global Development Policy Centre at Boston University’s Pardee School of Global Studies, and Co-Chair of the ‘Think 20’ Task Force on International Finance to the G20 and José Antonio Ocampo, Professor at Columbia University and former UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs and Finance to the G20

Last week, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) took another step forward in recognising that regulating international capital flows is important to maintain financial stability. However, the IMF’s new policy change is still not fully in step with the policies needed to manage the capital account volatility that emerging and developing countries face. 

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Development Matters
Covid-19, Reviving multilateralism

Covid-19 vaccines and official development assistance

By Haje Schütte, Senior Counsellor and Head, Financing for Sustainable Development Division, Development Co-operation Directorate, OECD

When scientists announced the discovery of a Covid-19 vaccine, the world sighed with relief. But soon after, many people around the globe discovered that others would get access to jabs faster than them. The sad term ‘vaccine inequality’ was coined. Only 6% of people are fully vaccinated in low-income countries today. In a bid to fill the gaps and curb the pandemic, there were calls for high-income countries to share and donate vaccine doses to developing countries, in particular through the COVAX Facility – the multilateral mechanism for providing developing countries with vaccines.

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Development Matters
Reviving multilateralism

What the Russia-Ukraine war means for Bangladesh’s economy

By Fahmida Khatun, Executive Director at the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD)[1]

Since the war between Russia and Ukraine began on February 24, 2022, the global economy has entered a new terrain of uncertainty. The war-induced challenges have surfaced on various fronts. With global economic integration, a crisis of such nature, which involves a country like Russia, is bound to impact other economies.[2]

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Development Matters
Reviving multilateralism

The European way: policy first for the people

By Anna Terrón Cusí, Director of the International and Ibero-American Foundation for Administration and Public Policies (FIIAPP)

“Policy first” is an emerging concept in the European Union’s (EU) external action and development co-operation. The idea is that shared policies and political priorities between the EU, EU Member States and partner countries should guide the EU’s external action and development co-operation, as opposed to former approaches more driven   by  the legal and administrative aspects of external financial instruments rather than policy.

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Development Matters
Development in Transition, Latin America and the Caribbean, Reviving multilateralism

How Latin America can tackle the international and national drivers of discontent

By Rita Da Costa, Senior Counsellor and Head of Development in Transition, Adriana Caicedo, Policy Analyst and Martina Lejtreger, External Consultant, OECD Development Centre

Deepening economic disparity, inequalities and social injustice have been at the heart of the mass demonstrations that have multiplied in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) since late 2019. This trend is likely to intensify in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the number of people in poverty has increased by 22 million since the start of the COVID-19 crisis and inequalities continue to rise, the stock of wealth held by billionaires in LAC has risen by more than 40%. The current context opens a window of opportunity for LAC to exit the crisis by establishing a new social contract, but this will require a step change in international co-operation.

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Development Matters
Covid-19, Reviving multilateralism

No time to lose: strengthen global vaccine co-operation and leave no country behind

By Zhang Laiming, Vice President and Research Fellow of the Development Research Center of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China

In the fight against COVID-19, the most pressing priority is to bridge the global vaccine divide. While 71.56% of the population in high-income countries have been fully vaccinated, the same can be said for only 4.89% of people in low-income countries. As long as the vaccine divide exists, the coronavirus will not stop spreading and mutating, and no country will be safe. To this end, countries must work together. So, what needs to be done in the near future?

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Development Matters