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1 day ago | 
devex.com | Adva Saldinger
One of the big questions going into the World Bank-International Monetary Fund Spring Meetings was whether the United States would engage with the institutions, and if so, how? On Wednesday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent provided some answers.
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1 day ago | 
devex.com | Adva Saldinger
The Millennium Challenge Corporation – a U.S. development agency – may be next on the Trump administration’s chopping block.
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1 day ago | 
devex.com | Adva Saldinger
At this week’s World Bank Spring Meetings, the buzzword is jobs, and specifically how they can offer pathways out of poverty. While World Bank President Ajay Banga said he wants the bank to orient itself around a “north star” of job creation, much of the how is still underway. That means no headline goals, no flashy data, and to some observers, not even clear definitions.
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2 days ago | 
devex.com | Adva Saldinger
The bank could soon end its ban on nuclear energy work, with shareholders and borrowing countries expressing growing interest in the clean, stable source of power and bank leadership backing the idea. For years, energy advocates, key World Bank shareholders, and some borrowing countries have urged the bank to rethink its policy banning any work on or financing of nuclear energy — and now it seems this might actually come to pass.
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3 days ago | 
devex.com | Adva Saldinger
The World Bank-International Monetary Fund Spring Meetings that kick off this week are likely to be a quieter affair as the institutions seek to keep a low profile amid uncertainty about their relationship with the United States, their largest shareholder.
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3 days ago | 
devex.com | Adva Saldinger
If the World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s annual Spring Meetings feel a little quieter this year, that’s probably not an accident. Both institutions are walking a diplomatic tightrope as they convene during a 180-day review ordered by the Trump administration in February — a process that could reshape their relationship with their largest shareholder: the United States. That looming uncertainty is casting a shadow over this week’s meetings.
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1 week ago | 
devex.com | Adva Saldinger
Emerging markets are feeling the pinch of borrowing in foreign currencies. When governments or companies in Ghana or Sri Lanka take out loans in U.S. dollars or euros but earn revenue in cedis or rupees, it sets up a mismatch that can quickly become a crisis when local currencies depreciate — a scenario playing out repeatedly amid rising global volatility.
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1 week ago | 
devex.com | Adva Saldinger
Governments and businesses in emerging economies often borrow in foreign currencies such as the U.S. dollar to fund critical infrastructure or fuel growth. But there’s a fundamental mismatch: the revenue from those projects is earned in local currency. If the exchange rate remains stable, all is well. But when local currencies weaken — as they often do in times of economic stress — repaying that debt becomes far more expensive.
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2 weeks ago | 
devex.com | Adva Saldinger
“Are we going to fund this forever?” asked Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a Republican from Florida, at an appropriations committee hearing about PEPFAR, the U.S. government’s global HIV/AIDS program. That was the looming question, along with how PEPFAR could be effectively wound down and programs transferred to individual country governments, the private sector, or other donors, at the National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Subcommittee meeting on Tuesday.
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3 weeks ago | 
devex.com | Adva Saldinger |Vince Chadwick
Leslie Maasdorp is not new to development finance, but he is new to the helm of British International Investment, the U.K. development finance institution. He’s challenged the status quo in the past: In a 2021 opinion piece in the Financial Times, he argued that multilateral development banks don’t actually need their coveted AAA ratings and could increase their lending capacity if they weren’t wedded to it.
