Emergency BU Alert BU Alert: Boston University’s Charles River, Fenway, and Medical Campuses will be closed starting 12PM Sunday, January 25 and Monday, January 26, 2026. Please visit bu.edu/today for more information.
By Samantha Igo As a record-breaking heat wave strains energy grids and risks public health across Europe, policymakers, activists and experts convene in Seville, Spain from June 30 to July 3 for the highly anticipated 4th International Conference on Financing for Development (FFD4). These rather rare policy events (the last was 10 years ago in […]
Addressing the intertwined challenges of climate change and growth in emerging and developing economies requires an urgent and unprecedented increase in climate-aligned investment. Increasing investment is essential to addressing the negative effects of climate shocks on growth and productivity. This comes at a time when the world, and developing countries in particular, are experiencing slowing […]
By Rishikesh Ram Bhandary When governments met for the 3rd International Conference on Financing for Development in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 2015, they asked multilateral development banks (MDBs) to examine the adequacy of their resources to support the sustainable development agenda. After Addis, there was indeed an uptick of general capital increases for MDBs; however, […]
Multilateral development banks (MDBs) play a key role providing developing countries with affordable, long-term finance. In 2024, to help meet development challenges, the Group of 20 (G20) agreed on a roadmap to make the MDBs bigger, better and more effective and recommended MDBs conduct resource needs reviews to assess adequacy of resources to meet shareholder […]
Developing countries are facing dramatic debt and development crises where, to meet obligations to their external creditors, debt-distressed countries are sacrificing investments in education, healthcare, infrastructure and climate resilience. A reason for the debt situation is that the international community failed to address the flaws in the global financial architecture and to enable and embolden […]
By Yan Wang and Yinyin Xu Energy poverty remains a persistent and widespread development challenge across Africa, where more than 600 million people, primarily in sub-Saharan regions, still lack reliable access to electricity. This situation accounts for over 80 percent of the global electricity access gap. Even though many African countries are rich in natural […]
By Tim Hirschel-Burns The highly anticipated Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FFD4) will take place from June 30 to July 3 in Seville, Spain. Achieving the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires funding that is in short supply in developing countries, and the FFD process is designed to help facilitate a global […]
By Marina Zucker-Marques The African continent holds immense potential for sustainable development. It is rich in renewable energy resources—home to 60 percent of the world’s solar potential, 30 percent of proven transition mineral reserves and enough wind capacity to meet its electricity needs 250 times over. Its young and growing population is another powerful engine […]
The Global Financial Safety Net (GFSN) is a set of institutions and mechanisms that provide insurance against crises and financing to mitigate their impacts. It has four main elements: countries’ own international reserves; bilateral swap arrangements whereby central banks exchange currencies to provide liquidity to banking systems; regional financial arrangements (RFAs) by which countries pool […]
Mortality rates decreased more slowly in the US than in other high-income countries (HICs) between 1980 and 2019, resulting in growing numbers of excess US deaths compared with other HICs. A new journal article published in JAMA Health Forum by Jacob Bor and coauthors assesses trends in excess US deaths before (1980-2019), during (2020-2022) and after (2023) the […]