As the need for substantive climate action and poverty alleviation becomes more urgent amid global crises, both developing and developed countries cannot fulfill the mechanisms designed to ease these issues. Meeting the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and climate action are necessary to ensure green transitions and lift communities out of poverty, but […]
On October 31, 2021, the Group of 20 (G20) made a historic announcement by committing to end finance for coal-fired power plants overseas. The G20 pledge caps a year of major sustainable finance pledges from national governments and their development finance institutions (DFIs) since the inaugural 2020 Finance in Common Summit, where DFIs pledged to […]
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) provides a global public good when it lends emergency balance of payments support to countries that otherwise could not access such financing at comparable terms. No country borrows from the IMF lightly, and only does so as a last resort in the face of an economic crisis. In exchange for […]
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) needs to rapidly, but carefully, devise a climate change strategy that helps countries meet their collective climate change goals in a manner that enhances stability, equity, growth, and sustainable development. A top priority for IMF reform will be to align the IMF’s core surveillance functions with climate ambition. To this […]
The development of multiple viable vaccines to eradicate the COVID-19 pandemic in less than a year was an incredible scientific achievement, which is now undermined by severe vaccine inequality. An inequitable vaccination program could prolong the pandemic for many years through cycles of mutation, resistance, and reinfection and will cost the global economy an estimated […]
In a new policy brief, Kevin P. Gallagher, William N. Kring, Barbara Fritz and Laurissa Mühlich discuss the precarious state of the global financial system and introduce a new interactive database to track short-term crisis finance. The world economy has gone into a free fall due to the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, policy-makers […]
In a new policy brief, Kevin P. Gallagher, Director of the Global Development Policy Center, and William N. Kring, Assistant Director, together with Haihong Gao, Ulrich Volz, and José Antonio Ocampo discuss the shortcomings of the current global financial safety net. After outlining the dysfunctions of the current financial system, the authors propose a set […]
The internet and rapid development in information technology (IT) has revolutionized the way the world trades and conducts business. The majority of buying and selling goods and services moved online through online marketplaces. The changing nature of trade should also mean a change in government policy in response. However, it is challenging to define efficient […]
In a new book published by the Asian Development Bank titled “Building the Future of Quality Infrastructure,” GDP Center Director Kevin P. Gallagher contributed two chapters on policy and institutional framework for delivering on sustainable infrastructure and on sustainable infrastructure to secure the natural capital of the Amazon. The book is published through a collaboration […]
Climate policy faces the challenge of dealing with pervasive and massive externalities compounded by crucial market failures. The price system, left to its own devices, is incapable of adequately dealing with this challenge and requires the support of appropriately crafted policy. However, this policy needs to be as pervasive as the climate challenge itself. Only […]