The effort to recycle unneeded SDRs from wealthy countries to poor countries was dealt a major setback in an omnibus spending deal recently passed by the US Congress. The final measure failed to include language authorizing the US Treasury to recycle 15 billion SDRs, worth about $21 billion, to the ...

Nearly six months into the fiscal year, Congress finally delivered an FY22 spending bill last week. But even after stalled negotiations prompted worries that lawmakers would be unable to reach a deal at all, the final measure is something of a disappointment—failing to deliver sufficient resources t...

Last week, the US Treasury Department submitted a report to the appropriations committees of the House and Senate on strengthening the accountability mechanisms of the World Bank and International Finance Corporation, fulfilling a requirement included in the spending package signed into la...

Not only is the Trump administration supporting a $7.5 billion capital increase for the IBRD (and at that, one that is 50 percent larger than the capital increase supported by the Obama administration in 2010), it has also signed on to a policy framework for the new money that makes a good deal of s...

In 1944, the United States created a blueprint for economic statecraft that relied heavily on a new class of multilateral institutions to pursue US interests in the world. The blueprint itself is now under serious duress in the “America First” strategy of international engagement of the ...

Earlier this month the US Treasury’s top international official announced at a congressional hearing that he would like to see the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP) “wound down.” Scratching beneath GAFSP’s surface, there are good reasons to be con...

Domestic revenue mobilization (DRM) seems set to be a priority area for the US Agency for International Development (USAID) under Administrator Mark Green. The challenge has been in tracking US (and other donors’) support for DRM activities. While the data only covers projects in 2015 so far, ...

At a recent budget hearing, committee chairman Hal Rogers drew Mnuchin’s attention to the fact that the “past due” notices from the World Bank and regional MDBs are now approaching a record $2 billion. Mnuchin acknowledged a problem, expressed some degree of mystification about fed...

For the US Development Policy Initiative’s inaugural Voices of Experience event, three former Treasury Under Secretaries for International Affairs took the stage: Tim Adams of the Institute of International Finance, Lael Brainard of the Federal Reserve, and&n...