Amid warnings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that it is “now or never” to make the investments necessary to limit warming to 1.5°C and avoid catastrophic costs, policymakers are in Paris this week to discuss the international financial architecture and how to efficiently mobilize sufficient resources for a green transition. Multilateral development banks […]
The World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Appellate Body (AB) was established in 1995 to hear appeals on trade disputes between member countries. However, following the end of the final member’s term in 2020, it has been effectively disbanded, and the United States has since blocked all new appointments. The inability of a multilaterally accepted AB to […]
A clean energy transition and achievement of the UN 20230 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in developing countries requires staggering amounts of resources that are currently beyond the capacity of domestic fiscal space available. The international community has found it very challenging to meet the commitments on international resource transfers, whether it is the 0.7 percent […]
By Brook Baker and Rachel Thrasher COVID-19 exploded on a global stage dominated by an international legal and policy regime that instantiates closed science, intellectual property (IP) monopolies and privatized control over the testing, supply, price and distribution of life-saving health technologies. As a result, there were avoidable delays in biopharmaceutical preparedness, ill-adapted technologies that […]
By Yaechan Lee The International Monetary Fund (IMF) continues to be the focal institution in the Global Financial Safety Net (GFSN), which refers to a set of institutions and mechanisms that provide insurance against crises and financing to mitigate their impact. Yet, the IMF’s stringent conditionalities that were often perceived to ignore country-specificities, and the […]
The rise of regional financial arrangements (RFAs) over the last two decades has significantly reshaped the Global Financial Security Net (GFSN), which was previously almost the sole purview of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). While the rise in regionally based financial resources has been widely noted, as have the challenges of coordinating IMF and RFA […]
By Amanda Brown On Tuesday, May 2, 2023, the Debt Relief for a Green and Inclusive Recovery (DRGR) Project hosted the webinar launch of its new report, “Debt Relief for a Green and Inclusive Recovery: Guaranteeing Sustainable Development.” The DRGR Project is a collaboration between the Boston University Global Development Policy (GDP) Center, Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung and […]
The year 2023 offers political momentum for strengthening the global climate finance architecture under and outside the United Nations climate change regime. In November 2022, the 27th United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP27) marked a breakthrough on loss and damage with an agreement for establishing new funding arrangements, including a fund. Parties also recognized […]
By Timon Forster On March 29, 2023, the Boston University Global Development Policy Center, the Institute for Economic Development and the Department of Economics hosted its annual Paul Streeten Distinguished Lecture in Global Development Policy, which celebrates the legacy of BU Professor Paul Streeten as an eminent economist and interdisciplinary scholar of global development policy. […]
Reform of the international financial system is in the air, with support from both developing countries, as well as the advanced economies that wrote the rules in the first place. Tasked by US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, the World Bank has begun advancing an ‘evolution roadmap’ that reconsiders the mission, operations and financing […]