Currency risk is the Achilles heel of developing economies that borrow to make investments to increase productivity, reduce emissions and meet the sustainable development goals. Some 90 per cent of cross-border debt for low and lower-middle income countries, nearly $2tn, is denominated in hard currencies, mostly dollars, much of it from development banks and other […]

The humanitarian, moral and economic case for development aid has been made eloquently and does not bear repeating. But the stark, ongoing highly inequitable impact of climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic, both of which hurt poor and developing economies the most, has turbocharged the case for more aid and now. However, present levels of aid languish at 0.32% of GDP, or $161.2 […]

The EU Recovery Fund is in the headlines again, but for all the wrong reasons. An injunction by the German constitutional court has the German president from ratifying the legislation supporting the Fund. Similar challenges delayed the ratification of the EU´s Lisbon treaty and legislation for the European Stability Mechanism by several months. Members of […]

The Franco-German plan for a €500 billion “recovery fund” has been welcomed with superlatives such as “Hamiltonian,” “stunning,” “a game-changer” and the somewhat slightly less hagiographic “surprisingly ambitious.” In actual fact, it is just a damp squib. The appropriate criteria by which to judge such a proposal are 1) Is it big enough? 2) Is […]