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

World Bank Investment Projects Aren’t Designed for Crises

March 15, 2023

In a recent note, Zack Gehan and I used a database of World Bank projects to examine the association between World Bank project types and environmental review procedures and project preparation times. We found that policy lending projects are significantly faster to design, while projects that undergo the stricter forms of environmental and social screening are slower (these are “Category A” projects where borrowers and the bank need to undertake assessments and agree mitigation measures and “Category B,” which still requires some assessment and mitigation measures). Policy lending takes 107 [...]

Read More

Before Throwing Grant Money at Global Public Goods, Let’s Figure Out if We Know How to Pitch

March 14, 2023

The World Bank’s Evolution Roadmap suggests the institution could provide more grants and subsidies to activities that support the provision of global public goods (GPGs), particularly in richer developing countries. Provision of those public goods is surely a priority: avoiding future pandemics and limiting climate change benefits everyone. At the same time, and especially in an environment where finance for international subsidies and grants is extremely limited, it is important that the mechanisms are efficient. That isn’t at all true of existing funding, and there is no agreed pathway to [...]

Read More

Concessional Finance for Addressing Climate Change: A System Ripe for Reform

March 14, 2023

Climate financial intermediary funds (FIFs) represent one of the largest sources of multilateral grant and other concessional finance for climate, including for middle-income countries (MICs). Together, they have received more than $50 billion in cumulative grant funds from donors. They have collectively allocated $48 billion for projects and $2 billion in administrative overhead.  In a new paper, we look at the structure, size, and performance of the three major climate FIFs: the Global Environment Facility Trust Fund (GEF TF), the Climate Investment Funds (CIF), and the Green Climate Fund (GCF). [...]

Read More

Concessional Climate Finance: Is the MDB Architecture Working?

March 14, 2023

Our paper evaluates the climate financial intermediary funds (FIFs) which are one of the largest sources of multilateral grant and concessional finance for climate, especially for middle-income countries. Donors have contributed more than $50 billion to these funds. The World Bank acts as a trustee for twelve climate FIFs. In this paper, we focus on the three largest: the Global Environment Facility (GEF), Climate Investment Funds (CIF), and Green Climate Fund (GCF). Our findings reveal significant challenges at the systemic level and differing performance across FIFs. FIF funding is not allocated [...]

Read More