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Martin Atkin

25 Jan 2018 14:38:46

You wouldn’t just hand your money over to someone else to invest without asking them what they were going to do with it, would you? If you were a public body, at the very least you’d want to make sure it wasn’t used in a way that damaged the environment or undermined human rights. Increasingly, however, there are concerns that development finance institutions (DFIs - government-backed institutions that invest in private sector projects in developing countries) - are lending money to private sector financial intermediaries (FIs) to invest in infrastructure projects in developing countries - without ensuring that proper environmental and social safeguards are in place. These intermediaries - private commercial banks, private equity funds and infrastructure funds - are essentially go-betweens ...

Maria Romero, Polly Meeks

01 Jun 2017 09:40:01

Last week’s UN Financing for Development Forum showed that blended finance – using aid money to mobilise finance from other sources, especially the private sector – continues to top the agenda for many of the big players in development finance.  In fact, upcoming decisions in Paris and Brussels are likely to confirm blending as a much bigger part of Official Development Assistance (ODA) than ever before.  In Paris, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee (OECD DAC) will shortly decide on new aid rules that allow greater official support to the private sector, including blending, to be counted as ODA.  Meanwhile in Brussels, the European Commission is currently in the process of negotiating with the European Parliament ...

Bodo Ellmers

04 May 2017 10:12:45

In less than three weeks, governments, CSOs and international organizations gather at the UN in New York for the Financing for Development Forum. The forum takes place in crucial times as the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals faces severe financial constraints. Governments’ self-inflicted inability to raise sufficient taxes paired with rich countries’ unwillingness to provide sufficient aid means that development is all too often financed by borrowed money, a dilemma that is aggravated by new donor initiatives that even turn the limited grants into new debt, through blending facilities. In the meantime, developing countries’ shouts for debt relief are getting ever louder. This Financing for Development Forum promises to be very interesting.   What’s at stake?  ...

Bodo Ellmers, Maria Romero

25 Apr 2017 09:05:58

The 2017 spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank, which also included the second edition of the Global Infrastructure Forum, took place against the uncertainty generated by geopolitical changes such as the election of President Trump in the US and the formalisation of the UK’s exit from the European Union. A draft budget proposal by President Trump, released in the run-up to the Spring Meetings, overshadowed last week's discussions as it suggests that instead of getting a capital increase, the World Bank will experience a substantial cut in its funding from its main shareholder. Meanwhile, civil society organisations (CSOs) voiced their concerns about how far the Bretton Woods Institutions are from serving development objectives. Systematic and concerned focus on private finance. ...

Jesse Griffiths

17 Oct 2016 16:32:59

Originally published by Public Finance International Using aid to mobilise trillions in private money is a hot and hugely controversial topic. Such aid is no different from any other kind: it can be well spent or badly spent and should meet basic effectiveness principles Donor governments are currently revising rules on Official Development Assistance (ODA or ‘aid’) so that the opportunities for using aid to leverage – or more accurately, subsidise – private companies and private investment could explode. This is, of course, hugely controversial, and Eurodad has warned that more care, thought and time should be devoted to such rule changes, involve recipients and stakeholders and be preceded by a firm commitment from donors not to tie aid to the use of their own firms. When we talk ...