Center for Global Development

The Center for Global Development is an independent, nonpartisan think tank based in Washington D.C. and London. CGD works to reduce global poverty and improve lives through innovative economic research that drives better policy and practice by the world's top decision makers. Over the next two years, CGD will be conducting rigorous research and proposing practical solutions to drive broader mandates, better governance, and modern business models at the multilateral development banks.

Recent Posts

Evolving the World Bank’s Twin Goals

January 26, 2023

The World Bank management’s Evolution Roadmap suggests the institution is reconsidering its ‘twin goals’ mission statement of eradicating extreme poverty (ending $2.15 poverty by 2030) and boosting shared prosperity (raising the incomes of the bottom 40 percent in each country). “nearly half the world – over 3 billion people – lives on less than US$6.85 per day, the average of the national poverty lines of upper-middle income countries… The WBG [World Bank Group] could consider adding a higher poverty line to be targeted alongside extreme [$2.15] poverty. This might align [...]

Read More

The World Bank Group’s Evolution Roadmap: More Work Needed

January 11, 2023

At the Annual Meetings of the World Bank and IMF in October last year, shareholders asked the World Bank to come up with a set of proposals to take a larger role in climate and other global public goods. The Bank’s first response came pretty quick: by mid-December, only a couple of months after the request, the institution sent an evolution roadmap to the World Bank board. It is very much worth a read, with much to like but much to panic over, too. Unsurprisingly, given the timeline, a lot [...]

Read More

Transparency and World Bank Evolution

January 9, 2023

Late last year, the World Bank Group issued a roadmap on its potential evolution in response to shareholder pressure at this year’s Bank-Fund annual meetings. The roadmap document has been widely shared with member governments. As reported by Reuters and Devex on the basis of leaked copies, it proposes reforms to the World Bank Group’s mission and operations along with increased funding and a significant move into subsidizing the provision of global public goods in middle income economies–a major overhaul. The Bank should publish the roadmap immediately. For good reason, [...]

Read More

The New Model IFC Still Isn’t a Good Deal for IDA Countries

December 7, 2022

In September 2019, I wrote a blog asking “Is the New Model IFC a Good Deal for IDA Countries?” It noted that the International Finance Corporation, the private sector investment arm of the World Bank Group, had stopped handing over some of its profits to IDA, the part of the World Bank Group that makes low-interest loans and grants to governments of the world’s poorest countries. Instead, IDA had started providing cash to help finance IFC deals in IDA-eligible countries—through the Private Sector Window (PSW). The net effect: [In 2011,] [...]

Read More