This week’s General Assembly was a gloomy affair as UN officials strained to defend multilateralism in an increasingly polarized world with several major heads of state MIA.

It is standard fare for the G20 to issue lofty statements without any real muscle behind them, but the discordance in this year’s declaration is especially grating because explicitly and implicitly, the G20 have heaped exceptionally large burdens on the MDBs all in the context of what the leaders ac...

On August 10, the White House submitted a $40.1 billion emergency supplemental request to Congress that includes $2.25 billion for the World Bank. The request for the Bank is well balanced: it would provide $1.25 billion to support “global challenges” (a more politically palatable term than climate ...

High on the list of objectives in the ongoing multilateral development bank (MDB) reform debate is to increase levels of private capital mobilization—something that has proved much harder to achieve than expected. Despite the lofty ambitions set out in the “billions to trillions” agenda, each dolla...

Stephanie von Friedeburg of Citi and formerly the International Finance Corporation joins CGD’s Karen Mathiasen and Clemence Landers for a conversation on how to balance risk and impact in investment, why blended finance needs a rethink, and what mechanisms offer the most promising solutions to the ...

My judgement is that the MDB reform needle wasn’t so much moved as sharpened—the G20 Finance Ministers have made clear what the immediate priorities are. The G20 will have a chance to weigh in on the MDB agenda again in September when India chairs the Leaders’ Summit. Ideally, they will have a bit m...

On June 26, France released an outcome document from the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact, which brought together governments, multilateral develop banks and other stakeholders to consider reforms to the global financial system. So just what are the elements of this new global compact?  

As new World Bank President Ajay Banga settles into 1818 H Street, he will face a sharply divided group of shareholders on the mandate of the Bank, as evidenced by the contentious debate over its role on climate and other global public goods (GPGs). Most shareholders have weighed into this debate,...