Nation building successes and failures matter to the EU and OECD
By Dominic Rohner, Professor of Economics, Faculty of Business and Economics (HEC Lausanne), University of Lausanne, and Research Fellow, the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)
From Syria to Libya, Somalia to Yemen, today more than 50 nations are categorised as fragile states. With a number sitting very close to the EU’s borders, it’s impossible to argue that these countries and the difficulties they face exist in a vacuum from the rest of the world.
As conflict, extremism, and poverty increase due to states falling into “failed” or “failing” categories – the ripple effects are not only tragic for the domestic population but also felt way beyond their borders.
It follows that, to help the EU achieve greater integration and assist its institutions bolster fragile neighbours and partner states, we need a greater understanding of what makes some states thrive, while others slide from fragility to outright collapse. Continue reading Nation building successes and failures matter to the EU and OECD
Quota reform is an opportunity for the IMF to restore its legitimacy
By William N. Kring, Marilou Uy, Rakesh Mohan and Haihong Gao1
As the global economy confronts a myriad of challenges, the prospects for long-term growth and economic recovery look increasingly bleak.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF), the center of the Global Financial Safety Net (GFSN), is the pre-eminent multilateral institution tasked with addressing challenges that threaten global financial stability. Unfortunately, the lending capacity of the IMF has not kept pace with the global economy or global trade flows, and quota shares of emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) are increasingly misaligned with their role in the global economy.
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Social protection is key to ending poverty. So why is it so neglected in ODA?
By Olivier De Schutter, United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
Progress on poverty eradication is fading fast. We’re halfway to 2030, the deadline for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, and the number of people living in extreme poverty is higher than it was four years ago.
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Currency risk is stifling climate finance for developing countries. It should – and can – be mitigated
By Ruurd Brouwer, CEO, TCX, and Barry Eichengreen, Professor of Economics and Political Science, University of California, Berkeley
Private-sector funding will be essential for raising the trillions of dollars needed to finance climate-change abatement and adaption projects in emerging and developing countries. The question is: will that finance be forthcoming?
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Cascading climate risks are a threat Latin America must take seriously
By Will Nichols, Head of Climate and Resilience Risk, Verisk Maplecroft
Record temperatures, wildfires, storms and floods have all made headlines in 2023 as the world braces for a new climate reality. But the secondary impacts of these climate shocks cannot be ignored.
Governments and business organisations in Latin America must ask difficult questions about the relationships between climate impacts and secondary risks, including:
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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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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
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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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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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: 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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