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IMF (GEF): Africa Is Back
Posted 9 March 2010 | 9:35 pm

In the wake of the global financial crisis, there is a fresh energy in Sub-Saharan Africa–and a broad consensus on the road ahead. Above all, there is the strong sense that Africa’s destiny will be driven by Africans, not by others. (more)

IMF (GEF): IMF—Delivering on Promises to Africa
Posted 7 March 2010 | 4:56 pm

At a conference in Tanzania a year ago, the IMF committed to improving its policies and operational approaches in Africa and pledged to ensure Africa’s concerns would be taken into account during the meetings of the Group of Twenty (G-20) industrialized and emerging market countries and be an advocate for Africa. Now, IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, on a visit Kenya, South Africa, and Zambia–his third trip to the region in the past 12 months–presents the scorecard of how the IMF has delivered on its promises to the continent. (more)

World Bank PSD: FPD Forum Day 1
Posted 2 March 2010 | 9:47 pm

The first day of this year’s Financial and Private Sector Development Forum is about to wind down. I had the opportunity to attend several fascinating discussions, including: A workshop on catastrophic risk insurance in the Caribbean A discussion on building venture capital opportunities in developing countries A look at Africa’s industrial future An inspirational talk by Ingrid Munro on how she built Kenya’s largest microfinance institution with a team of beggars For those unable to attend this year’s forum, we have an active Twitter feed, where every attendee can share his or her thoughts on what they’ve seen. Check it out. Tomorrow Niall Ferguson will discuss whether developing countries have learned from the history of money, or if they’re simply doomed to repeat it. Did any of our readers attend today’s events? Feel free to use the comments section to discuss your reactions to the Forum thus far. (more)

World Bank PSD: Stop the Wars!
Posted 1 March 2010 | 3:28 pm

Does Haiti (or Chile) need a Marshall Plan to help recover from the ruins of natural disasters? How has the War on Poverty progressed in the United States? What about the Gates Foundation’s War on Malaria? Foreign Policy editor Moises Naim has a simple suggestion to each of these questions: It’s time for a new analogy. Social policy doesn’t need new wars and Marshall Plans: In fact, no imitation of the Marshall Plan has ever worked, and no war on a big social problem has ever ended in defeat for the enemy (save, perhaps, cigarettes). But the allure of these spurious comparisons remains as strong as ever. Without any apparent effect, Marshall Plans have been proposed to help Africa, the Middle East, New Orleans, Iraq, and even Wallonia, Belgium’s least prosperous region. Bill Gates wants a Marshall Plan to broaden access to technology, French President Nicolas Sarkozy urges one for… (more)

World Bank PSD: Bureaucrats into bankers?
Posted 26 February 2010 | 5:19 pm

The World Bank’s new chief economist for Financial and Private Sector Development, Asli Demirgüç-Kunt, has entered the blogosphere with the new All About Finance blog. In her first post, Asli considers whether the financial crisis ought to make us consider turning bureaucrats into bankers. She responds with a resounding “no”! Research is seldom conclusive, but in the area of state ownership of banking the evidence is as overwhelming as it gets. When it comes to lending, it appears that the state banks are the best at lending to cronies. Government officials face conflicts of interest that go against efficient allocation of resources – such as securing their political bases and rewarding supporters. Overall, greater state ownership of banking is associated with less financial sector development, lower growth, lower productivity and even less stability – and it is more damaging at lower per capita income levels where there are typically fewer… (more)

IMF (GEF): Crisis Lessons to Remember for Europe’s Policymakers
Posted 24 February 2010 | 4:42 pm

IMF European Department Director Marek Belka, a former Polish premier, draws lessons from the global economic crisis for reformers in eastern Europe. (more)

World Bank PSD: Unemployment and the Oligarchs
Posted 23 February 2010 | 9:02 pm

Mark Thoma takes a look at who pays the cost of the recession: The recession is taking away opportunity for the young to gain employment experience, and many who are employed are working below their abilities in jobs they are likely to get stuck in for many years, if not forever. The recession is wiping out the accumulated assets of the unemployed as they try to bridge the gap until jobs return, and since many of these are older workers, this will have a large detrimental effect that lasts throughout their retirement years. Recessions cause skills to depreciate, there are psychological costs, there are costs to family members, the loss of a job generally means loss of health care, the costs to working class households go on and on. It is worth repeating that many of the externalities of the financial crisis are likely to become perpetual, as middle-aged workers… (more)

World Bank PSD: Can Berlin learn from Abu Dhabi?
Posted 22 February 2010 | 10:29 pm

Bloomberg has announced that the worst is yet to come for the euro, thanks to ongoing Greek woes. The last time I discussed Greece was in this post last November: The unfolding events in Dubai bring into question the stability of the global recovery, which has largely been fueled by extraordinary government support mechanisms. The combination of the Dubai government abandoning the liabilities of its own company, along with Abu Dhabi’s reluctance to get involved, shows that government support cannot always be assured, even when capital for a bailout can be easily secured. If Abu Dhabi, home of the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund (and a very small population), is unwilling to bail out its own compatriot, can it be guaranteed that Germany will bail our Greece (or Ireland, or Spain)? Or Sweden will bail out Latvia? Or Austria will protect its banks’ exposure to Eastern Europe? Or that Washington… (more)

About EBRD

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development(EBRD) uses the tools of investment to help build market economies and democracies in countries from central Europe to central Asia (read more).