Gallagher Argues for Global Financial Support of Green Economic Recoveries
Kevin Gallagher, Professor of Global Development Policy at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies and Director of BU’s Global Development Policy Center (GDP Center), was quoted in an article on Ecuador’s struggle to finance a green economic recovery while saddled with debt.
The article, titled “Ecuador’s Distant Dream of a Green Recovery,” explores how Ecuador and other countries in the global south have struggled to green economic investments in the wake of COVID-19. According to the piece, “around half of the mitigation projects in Ecuador’s NDC are conditional on external support;” however, many international lenders are hesitant to restructure their global financing structure to support green economic recoveries. This has resulted in counties such as Ecuador relying on fossil fuel production to mitigate its debt.
Gallagher commented that international support for green development projects is insufficient, especially if Ecuador scales down oil exports. He echoed arguments made in his latest book The Case for a New Bretton Woods, which was co-authored by Richard Kozul-Wright, Director of the Globalisation and Development Strategies Division at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). In it, the two call on the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to “abandon austerity requirements and cooperate with other development banks to boost worldwide financing for just green transitions to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars.”
The full article can be read on Foreign Policy‘s website.
Kevin Gallagher is a professor of global development policy at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, where he directs the Global Development Policy Center. He is the author or co-author of numerous books, including most recently, The Case for a New Bretton Woods (Wiley, 2022). Read more about Professor Gallagher on his Pardee School faculty profile.