-
Jun 13, 2024 | 
medium.com | Andrew Herscowitz
Over my two decades working for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), I felt great pride in our humanitarian relief efforts. Whether responding to hurricanes in the Caribbean, helping manage the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, or providing food aid to displaced people affected by conflict, USAID's Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, which includes the office formerly known as the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA), was always there.
-
Apr 30, 2024 | 
odi.org | Sara Pantuliano |Sheila Warren |Andrew Herscowitz |Liesbet Steer
The question of how multilateral development banks need to reform themselves so they are fit to face today's global challenges was again high on the agenda at the recent World Bank/IMF Spring Meetings in Washington, D.C.These debates and recommendations for reform can be technical and complex, but what do the people these financial institutions were set up to serve think about what changes are needed?
-
Apr 4, 2024 | 
odi.org | Yunnan Chen |Andrew Herscowitz
The Belt and Road Forum in October 2023 marked a decade of China’s flagship initiative, revitalising the rhetoric of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) following years of negative PR. It was a political signal that President Xi Jinping’s initiative was not going away. The forum also signalled a shift in the next phase of BRI in terms of China’s overseas finance, in a much leaner and more targeted direction, but also with a much more conservative risk appetite.
-
Mar 19, 2024 | 
odi.org | Andrew Herscowitz
An upside of “great power competition” is that it can motivate wealthy countries to do more for countries who need more. With China’s and Russia’s growing influence in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), the U.S. must recognize that one of its strongest tools for pushing back against China and Russia is through the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
-
Mar 13, 2024 | 
odi.org | Andrew Herscowitz
During this month’s World Bank-IMF Spring Meetings, ODI, one of the world’s leading global affairs and development think tanks, with its new presence in Washington, D.C., will convene leaders from multilateral development banks (MDBs), development finance institutions (DFIs), and governments to discuss how the development finance architecture can be restructured to better serve poorer people and vulnerable countries and to drive the new green economy.
-
Feb 21, 2024 | 
odi.org | Andrew Herscowitz
The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) was launched four years ago as the U.S. government’s new development finance institution. Its purpose is to bring public and private financing to companies investing in poor countries to advance both development and U.S. foreign policy objectives. There have been several insightful pieces written about changes that should be made during DFC’s reauthorization process in 2025.
-
Feb 15, 2024 | 
devex.com | Andrew Herscowitz
The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation has already accomplished so much in the short period it has been operational. Yet the U.S. Congress, the White House, other U.S. government agencies, and external stakeholders all want and expect it to do more, faster. But those same stakeholders, and DFC itself, have put constraints on what it can do. We need to change that so that DFC can do more of what it does so well.
-
Jan 18, 2024 | 
odi.org | Andrew Herscowitz
Over my two decades working for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), I felt great pride in our humanitarian relief efforts. Whether responding to hurricanes in the Caribbean, helping manage the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, or providing food aid to displaced people affected by conflict, USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, which includes the office formerly known as the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA), was always there.
-
Jan 16, 2024 | 
reuters.com | Andrew Herscowitz
January 15 - Despite billions in development aid being spent in the last 50 years, only seven countries have emerged from least developed country (LDC) status. We can do better. But that will require leaders in Davos this week to focus on how their global job creation plans and energy and climate strategies will benefit the one billion people who live in the world’s 45 LDCs.Most new green jobs today are in the large G20 economies.
-
Dec 1, 2023 | 
odi.org | Andrew Herscowitz
Among the hottest debates at COP28 will be those about fossil fuels and the needs of the poorest countries in the world. Some are upset that the hosts of the climate summit run one of world’s largest oil & gas companies, with accusations that they are using the summit to advance their country’s and company’s economic interests. Others defend the hosts, claiming that they understand the fossil fuel industry and can push for real change.
