Category: GEGI

International Investment Pushes Past and Present: Introducing the Blog Series

By Tim Hirschel-Burns Political winds may have shifted in some major powers, but reality has not: a global investment push is needed. Only 18 percent of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are on track, setting the world on a course for low growth, instability and the mass waste of human potential. Last year was the […]

Chart of the Week: Debt Distress: The Hidden Barrier to Scaling Up Adaptation Finance

By Rishikesh Ram Bhandary and Tim Hirschel-Burns As negotiations at the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Belém, Brazil go down to the wire, one of the key topics awaiting resolution is adaptation finance. Adaptation finance is geared towards helping countries address the impacts of climate change. It can include measures ranging from […]

Report on Compulsory Licensing Provisions in the National Patent Legislation of 15 Middle-Income Countries: A Content Analysis and Recommendations

The access to medicines discourse over the past 30 years has highlighted the myriad of obstacles to access experienced by low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Already plagued by over-taxed health services systems, a limited health care workforce and other resource constraints, in the mid-1990s these countries faced a new constraint in the form of the […]

Defunding the Amazon: Mapping ISDS Risk from the Oil and Gas Sector in Amazonian Countries

The protection of the Amazon is a central theme of the 30th Conference of the Parties (COP30) in Belém, Brazil. However, efforts to ensure that the Amazon is defended are at risk of instead being defunded—by investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). Written into international investment treaties, ISDS gives foreign investors a special right to sue governments […]

Desvendando o “Pecado Digital”: ForexTech e as Novas Fronteiras da Volatilidade Cambial

Por Pedro Perfeito da Silva e Marina Zucker-Marques A expansão das FinTechs—inovações tecnológicas em serviços financeiros—está mudando a forma como pessoas e empresas poupam, investem, realizam pagamentos, acessam crédito, e gerenciam suas finanças. Enquanto estudos destacam o potencial das FinTechs para promover inclusão financeira e eficiência, elas também criam novos riscos para países em desenvolvimento, […]

Decoding “Digital Sin”: ForexTech and the New Frontiers of Currency Instability

By Pedro Perfeito da Silva and Marina Zucker-Marques The spread of FinTech—technology-driven innovation in financial services—is changing how people and businesses save, invest, make payments, access credit and manage their finances. While studies highlight FinTech’s potential to promote financial inclusion and efficiency, it also creates new risks for developing countries, from financial instability to currency […]

Financial Subordination Goes Digital: Assessing the Drivers of Brazil’s Exchange Rate Instability

Since the crisis of the Bretton Woods order, capitalist economies have experienced a pervasive impulse to financialization, characterized by the growing importance of financial practices and motives alongside the dissemination of market reforms such as the removal of capital controls and the erosion of financial regulation. Beside the negative implications for growth and income distribution, […]

Celebrating the Working Group on Trade Treaties and Access to Medicines

By Rachel Thrasher and Samantha Igo Established in 2018, the Working Group on Trade Treaties and Access to Medicines was convened by the Boston University Global Development Policy Center (GDP Center) to advance an evidence-based understanding of the impacts of trade and investment treaties on access to medicines. The goal of the Working Group—which was comprised […]

IMF Lending Returns to Low Levels While the PBOC Continues as the Largest Provider of Currency Swaps: Insights from the Updated Global Financial Safety Net Tracker

By Marina Zucker-Marques, Laurissa Mühlich, and Barbara Fritz In a world beset by lower growth prospects, unprecedented uncertainty in international trade and high debt service pressures, access to timely financial resources is essential for central banks and governments in order to stabilize their economies without compromising spending on domestic priorities. This crisis financing comes from […]