This Week in Global Development

As key appointments in the Trump administration come into focus, what will they mean for U.S. foreign aid? With high-profile picks such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for health secretary and Marco Rubio for secretary of state in the spotlight, all eyes in the development community are on Trump’s yet-to-be-announced choice to lead the U.S. Agency for International Development — a decision poised to shap...

This week we reflect on the United Nations COP29 climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, which wrapped up over the weekend. We take a closer look at the outcomes, analyzing nations’ commitment to a new $300 billion annual global climate finance target and exploring whether it’s sufficient to support the needs of the lower-income countries most impacted by climate change. While some steps have been...

As COP29 comes to a close, we take a look at what negotiators are still racing to resolve in the final hours of the ambitious two-week conference. From building carbon markets to establishing private sector partnerships to meet the funding gap, we also contemplate whether the discussions will lead to meaningful action and address the issues posed by climate change. This week, we were also on the g...

For this special episode of our weekly podcast series, Devex EVP and Executive Editor Kate Warren sits down with leaders from Bayer and Mars who discuss the challenges and opportunities for the private sector in addressing climate change. 

For this special episode of our weekly podcast series recorded at COP29, Devex climate reporter Jesse Chase-Lubitz sits down with Kulthoum Omari-Motsumi from the Africa Adaptation Initiative, Patrick Verkooijen of the Global Center on Adaptation, and Tagaloa Cooper from the South Pacific Regional Environment Program. 

Agriculture is both a driver of climate change, with around 11% of global greenhouse gas emissions coming from direct on farm emissions, and a potential game changer in mitigating it, if carried out sustainably. Yet currently agriculture receives only 4.3% of total mitigation and adaptation finance , making it an underutilized part of the solution to climate change. “Maybe an important conversatio...

While the African continent has seen significant economic growth in recent years, it continues to grapple with critical infrastructure challenges that hamper business expansion, service delivery, trade, investment, as well as sustainable development.  In the latest episode of This Week in Global Development, Devex Executive Vice President Kate Warren speaks with Alain Ebobissé, CEO of Africa50, du...

As the COP 29 U.N. climate conference kicks off in Baku, Azerbaijan, we look ahead to the potential implications of the discussions on the global development sector. Labeled as the “finance COP,” one of the expected outcomes of the summit is a new financial goal for high-income countries to deliver to lower-income countries to address the challenges induced by climate change. With Trump’s recent r...

This week, former President Donald Trump was elected for a second term at the White House. His reelection marks a radical shift in U.S. foreign policy priorities for a sweeping range of issues, not least abortion , climate, global health, and LGBTQI rights.  The global development community is closely watching how things are unfolding in Washington, D.C. Major reforms to the international financia...

This week we discuss the key takeaways from Devex World 2024 , our flagship event that took place in Washington, D.C., alongside the World Bank-International Monetary Fund annual meetings . From discussions with philanthropist Howard Buffett, who called for increased aid to Ukraine, to a conversation with former executive director of the World Food Programme David Beasley, who believes the U.S. ca...

With the World Bank-International Monetary Fund annual meetings wrapped up, all eyes are now turning to the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP29, to be held next month in Baku, Azerbaijan.  So how do multilateral development banks stack up? Are their policies and programs enough to address climate shocks? Can and should they take on more risk? And is the money that MDBs have pr...

On Thursday, Devex hosted its biannual Devex World summit in Washington, D.C. Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar was on hand to interview global development heavy hitters on stage — and also sat down with Climate Investment Funds CEO Tariye Gbadegesin. CIF, founded in 2008, is a $12 billion multilateral climate finance fund. While all brains were focused on the World Bank annual meeting...

The World Bank Group released its new Gender Strategy earlier this year with three key aims: ending gender-based violence, expanding economic opportunities, and engaging more women as leaders. But how will the bank achieve these lofty aims? Devex Senior Reporter Adva Saldinger sits down with the bank’s Global Director for Gender Hana Brixi for our latest podcast to learn about how this new plan wi...

This is the first of a series of three special episodes of This Week in Global Development tied to the World Bank-International Monetary Fund annual meetings in Washington, D.C. Devex senior reporter Adva Saldinger speaks to Lord Mark Malloch Brown, who's co-leading an initiative aimed at assessing and providing recommendations for these Bretton Woods institutions, and Gates Foundation's president...

As we look ahead to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund annual meetings, we discuss what to expect from the summit, including whether the decisions made will have a meaningful impact and help overcome some of the biggest challenges in global development.  With the looming U.S. elections just around the corner, we consider the potential implications for the World Bank's strategy and...

This week we published an exclusive interview with Nicholas Kristof , an award-winning New York Times columnist. He spoke about what he saw in Sudan and the global community’s failure to respond to one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises — as the conflict in Gaza overshadows other crises around the world. As public attention wanes in the face of new crises, we question whether crisis fatigu...

Last week, we published an exclusive article on the European Union’s plan to cut its development spending by €2 billion (around $2.2 billion) over the next three years. This will account for a 35% reduction in the amount of money it gives to the world’s lowest-income countries as the bloc aims to focus on other priorities, including supporting Ukraine and stopping migration to Europe. The European...

In April, a group of multilateral development banks signed an agreement to work more closely together, known as a viewpoint note , which set a series of goals, including scaling up their financing capacity, and delivering more on climate.  Earlier this week, at the U.N. General Assembly , the heads of MDBs sat down with U.N. leaders to identify how they could make more progress to deliver those go...

In a special edition of the This Week in Global Development podcast recorded on the sidelines of the 79th United Nations General Assembly, chef and entrepreneur José Andrés spoke with Devex’s Kate Warren to discuss his humanitarian work with World Central Kitchen and the challenges of addressing global hunger. For Andrés, having a set system for food aid doesn’t work. This explains WCK's unique ap...

This week Devex is in New York covering the 79th United Nations General Assembly as well as the Summit of the Future. In addition to hosting our very own summit on the sidelines of these events, we are also closely following the conversations happening at the U.N. and around the rest of Manhattan that are most important to the global development community.  From reforming the international financi...

It’s no secret that promises to deliver more humanitarian and development funding to local and national organizations have not been fulfilled.  During the high-level week of the 79th U.N. General Assembly , Devex caught up with Degan Ali, who heads the Kenya-based NGO Adeso . Ali is a leading voice in the aid decolonization movement, which seeks to decenter the voices of Western decision-makers an...

Among the major development initiatives under discussion at the United Nations this week in New York is an ambitious goal set out by the World Bank and the African Development Bank , which aims to get electricity to 300 million Africans by 2030. During the high-level week of the U.N. General Assembly , Devex caught up with Andrew Herscowitz, CEO of the M300 Accelerator, which aims to make these am...

As world leaders get ready to meet in New York for the 79th United Nations General Assembly , we explore what we can expect from the event and whether big ideas can translate into meaningful action. The U.N.’s Summit of the Future is also set to take place early next week. With so many questions surrounding the conference, we contemplate whether the world is ready to solve the problems of tomorrow...

After severe cuts to its 2024 budgets for development and humanitarian aid, we found that the German government is planning to slash funds again in 2025 . A recently released draft budget spells out nearly €1 billion in cuts to the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, or BMZ , from €11.22 billion ($12.36 billion) this year to €10.28 billion in 2025. Germany is not the only Eu...

As the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation marks its 20th anniversary, we discuss our latest article on the agency . While MCC has invested $17 billion in 47 countries since its founding, we contemplate whether the agency has lived up to its founders’ lofty aims of holding countries accountable for good governance and rooting out corruption. Meanwhile, one of the biggest threats to aid workers i...