On August 19, 2022, China announced it would waive 23 interest-free loans (IFLs) with maturity by the end of 2021 for 17 unspecified African countries worth an unspecified total amount. While it is challenging to determine the exact amount of the cancelations due to lack of information, a new policy brief by the Boston University […]
By Bridgette Lang The Spring 2022 Global China Research Colloquium invited leading scholars to virtually present their latest research on topics spanning China’s application of industrial policy, debt-for-nature swaps with Ecuador, simulating the impacts of China’s clean energy transition abroad and mapping the marine risks of Chinese overseas development finance. Zhu Xian started the year […]
Whether or to what degree climate-vulnerable developing countries have fiscal space is a key question confronting the international public finance community today. A new technical paper by Toby Melissa C. Monsod, Mary Anne Majadillas and Maria Socorro Gochoco-Bautista for the Task Force on Climate, Development and the International Monetary Fund studies the availability of fiscal […]
By Ying Qian The COVID-19 pandemic has levied a brutal force on many emerging and low-income countries: not only their public health systems, but their economies have also suffered from severe contractions, which derailed revenue generation and budget execution. The onslaught of the pandemic has exacerbated the triple crisis of public health, rising poverty and […]
The economic shock from the COVID-19 pandemic has set back the development agendas for emerging markets and developing countries. Many developing countries have suffered from severe economic contractions that derailed revenue generation and budget execution and created urgent financing needs. Servicing public debt crowds out fiscal space for investing in a green and equitable recovery […]
A debt crisis is looming in the Global South. High levels of public debt service and insufficient fiscal and monetary space are threatening recoveries and impeding much-needed investments in climate resilience and the 2030 UN Sustainable Development Goals. A new policy brief from the Think7 (T7) Task Force on Sustainable Economic Recovery makes seven recommendations […]
By William N. Kring Amidst the backdrop of an enduring pandemic, rising inflation, growing external debt and Russia’s war in Ukraine, finance ministers and central bankers convene in Washington, D.C. this week for the 2022 Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. These meetings could not come at a more […]
For the second year in a row, the China-Latin America Finance Database, jointly managed by the Boston University Global Development Policy Center and the Inter-American Dialogue, recorded no new overseas finance commitments from China to Latin American governments or state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in 2021 through its two most active policy banks, the China Development Bank […]
In Southeast Asia, several countries are already exposed to socio-economic and financial losses induced by physical climate risk. Some Southeast Asian countries exposed to physical risk, such as Indonesia, are also leading producers and exporters of fossil fuels. This compounds the country’s climate impacts by exposing them transition risk, or a situation in which climate […]
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the most serious global health crisis of the past century. For many African countries in particular, the pandemic has also had severe social and economic impacts. Already fragile welfare systems have been threatened or overwhelmed. In addition, the pandemic has adversely affected African intraregional and international trade, investment flows […]