Devex Podcasts

The European Parliamentary elections will take place next month, and with anti-aid and anti-migrant parties poised to make big gains, there are fears for the future of the world's second-largest development budget. According to one senior Brussels politician, the controversial swiping of €2 billion from the development pot to fund a crackdown on illegal migration could just be the start of the European Union’s reduced focus on supporting global development initiatives. We explore how Europe’s political landscape is changing, as well as what it could mean to the EU’s approach to foreign assistance. In South Africa, we found that the country’s politics is preventing NGOs from effectively delivering health services to refugees and migrants. Aid groups and civil society organizations are trying to untangle the snarled problem of how to guarantee access to health services for all people who are far from home — whether that home is in another country or somewhere else in South Africa — without creating disparities in health care services that enrage local communities. On the topic of the continent, Devex obtained a copy of an African Union audit that examined accusations against Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention's Director General Dr. Jean Kaseya. The audit, which was finalized in March, analyzed over a dozen allegations in a February whistleblower email. We dig into the claims, including allegations of misusing funds, flouting rules, and exhibiting favoritism, among others. For the latest episode of our podcast series, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar sits down with Managing Editor Anna Gawel and Senior Reporter Sara Jerving to discuss these stories and others. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

This week we discuss the establishment of the Africa Club by the African Union, an initiative that the continent’s leaders hope will drive reform of the global financial architecture. With African states currently spending more on debt repayments than they are on health care or climate action, the goal is for the alliance to leverage more funding for global development efforts. On the topic of Africa, we also reported on a gathering of African leaders who outlined their funding priorities for the International Development Association, the World Bank's fund for the lowest-income countries. From building climate resilience to greater energy and digital access, we examine why IDA is such an important tool for countries in the global south. We also break down leaked documents from the European Commission that outline its development vision for the next five years. To almost nobody’s surprise, it appears as though the EU is planning to pursue a foreign aid agenda based on its own economic interests rather than prioritizing issues linked to poverty and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. And like the U.S. Agency for International Development, which is struggling to meet its localization objectives, the EU also faces issues around staffing that affect its ability to carry out effective aid delivery. To analyze these stories, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar sits down with Bidjan Nashat, managing director of Aequitas Human Capital, and Senior Reporter Adva Saldinger for this week’s edition of our podcast series. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

IDA, or International Development Association is the world bank’s fund for the poorest countries. IDA provides grants and low-cost loans that countries can use for a variety of needs from health to education to infrastructure. This year it's up for replenishment and so the bank is going to donors to ask for a new influx of capital. In this episode, we speak to Dirk Reinnerman, the Director of the IDA Resource Mobilization and IBRD Corporate Finance at the World Bank, about his pitch to donors in the IDA replenishment, and how it ties to broader bank reforms. We also hear from Garghee Ghosh, the president of global advocacy and policy at the Gates Foundation about what makes IDA unique, and Serah Makka, the Africa Executive director at the ONE Campaign.

In this episode of the Devex Book Club podcast, President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar sits down with Microsoft's Juan M. Lavista Ferres to talk about how he got his start with computer science, what AI can do (and what it can’t), and how Beluga whales can help detect war crimes in Syria.

Juan M. Lavista Ferres got his start with AI for good in an unlikely way: He really didn’t want to go hiking. While working at Microsoft running randomized control experiments, Ferres had a colleague who was raising money for research on sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, to which he had lost a child. The campaign involved climbing the Kilimanjaro mountain — decidedly a no-go for Ferres. Ferres didn’t want to climb a mountain, but he did want to contribute to his friend’s cause. So rather than lacing up his hiking boots, he got together with a group of colleagues to analyze the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s cohort-linked birth/infant death dataset, an open-source dataset that’s logged tens of thousands of SIDS cases in the United States. Using machine learning models, Ferres and his colleagues were able to manipulate the vast amount of data in ways that had never been done before, revealing new links between risk factors in infants and SIDS. It was through this effort that Ferres realized how powerful artificial intelligence could be for solving some of the world’s most intractable problems. For many of us, AI means asking ChatGPT for recipe suggestions or, more darkly, ruminating on the possibility that the machines will soon eclipse human intelligence. But “AI for Good,” both the name of Ferres’s book and the lab he directs at Microsoft, demonstrate the enormous power of AI to improve the world as we know it. In this episode of the Devex Book Club podcast, President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar sits down with Ferres to talk about how he got his start with computer science, what AI can do (and what it can’t), and how beluga whales can help detect war crimes in Syria.

Last week we were the media partner at the Global Inclusive Growth Summit hosted by the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth. The conference focused on how access to financial services are key to helping drive global development in low- and middle-income countries. During one of the events, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley stressed the importance of debt restructuring in order to help low- and middle-income countries overcome health and climate change challenges. We discuss the value of cash transfers for building resilience to crises by providing money to those in need quickly and efficiently, as well as how they can help increase financial inclusion globally. We also published a story on Grant Assistant, an AI tool supporting its users in the writing grant applications. From speeding up the process of navigating the paperwork to helping local and smaller organizations access USAID grants, we discuss the tool’s potential impact on the global development sector. This week, the U.S. Congress passed a bill, which would unlock around $9.2 billion in humanitarian aid. We contemplate what this means for USAID and where the money could go. To dig into these stories, Devex Managing Editor Anna Gawel sits down with Yolande Wright, vice president of partnerships at GiveDirectly, and Devex Senior Reporter Michael Igoe for the latest episode of our weekly podcast series. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

As finance ministers and central bank governors from the G20 nations concluded their recent meetings, concerns over the pace and stability of global economic recovery took center stage. In an exclusive conversation with Achim Steiner, the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), key insights emerged regarding the discussions surrounding coordination, the global financial architecture, and pressing challenges facing developing economies.

The World Bank and International Monetary Fund are trying to evolve and prove they are fit for purpose, but the jury is out on just how far that evolution process has gone.  While numerous announcements were made at the World Bank-IMF Spring Meetings last week in Washington D.C., the pace of reform is too slow, according to several experts. “The rhetoric in terms of the important pronouncements that have been made are saying the right things, but they're not giving you the next three things that could get done in the next month, in the next three months, in the next six months, in the next 12 months,” Afsaneh Beschloss, founder and CEO of investment firm RockCreek, told Devex.   “And so what I would urge the shareholders to do is really get serious, put pressure on the World Bank to start getting things done, not to look at the negativity, but look at the need,” she said, adding that “so much can get done today as we speak.” This gap between rhetoric and reality, between policy making at 10,000 feet and the impact on the real ground-level economy, was evident in the meetings, experts tell Devex in this podcast episode. "The world is in a very, very difficult place. There is progress, but not enough. Reforms need to broaden and deepen to address the grave situation," Rachel Kyte, professor of practice in climate policy at the University of Oxford, told Devex. We also speak with John Denton, the secretary general of the International Chamber of Commerce.Want to understand what played out at the meetings and what’s next? This podcast episode will give you the rundown.

How can the World Bank play a role in attracting more private capital to address development and climate needs? That is a challenge that World Bank President Ajay Banga has prioritized and was a key discussion in Washington, D.C., last week at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund Spring Meetings. From a Private Sector Investment Lab charged with helping the bank identify and scale what already works to a new loan guarantee platform and plans to bundle and sell some International Finance Corporation investments to private investors, changes are afoot. But there are questions about how far existing proposals go, if they will succeed, and how exactly private sector mobilization will be measured. In this podcast episode we hear from experts about how those efforts stack up and what more can be done to attract private money to these markets. We dive into what the Private Sector Investment Lab has prioritized, why mobilization efforts have been stymied, and the importance of data transparency in these discussions. Gavin Wilson, who leads DAI Capital; Nancy Lee, director for Sustainable Development Finance at the Center for Global Development; Ben Weisman, executive director of capital mobilization and public policy at the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero; and Gary Forster, CEO of Publish What You Fund share their insights.

This week we are closely following the World Bank and International Monetary Fund Spring Meetings taking place in Washington, D.C. From having a capital increase to provide funding for the world's low-income countries to how the financial institution can support the fight against climate change, we dig into the key conversations we’re following at the conference. In addition to increasing risk appetite to encourage private capital mobilization, we argue that multilateral development banks, as well as organizations under the World Bank Group umbrella should be collaborating better in order to maximize impact. To discuss how the bank can be reformed for it to be a better partner in global development, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar sits down with World Resources Institute CEO Ani Dasgupta and Devex Senior Reporter Adva Saldinger for the latest episode of the podcast series. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

The World Bank is about 18 months into its efforts to reform the institution in response to shareholder demands and changing global needs. From stretching its existing funding to attracting more private capital, the bank has laid a laundry list of proposals on the table. So what has been accomplished thus far and what more is needed? That’s what we tackle in the first episode of a special edition podcast during this year’s World Bank and International Monetary Fund Spring Meetings, which take place in Washington D.C. this week. The bank has a new capital adequacy framework to get more out of its own money, a new mission statement making climate change part of its core ambition, and of course a new leader in Ajay Banga. Listen in to hear Devex Senior Reporter Adva Saldinger in conversation with Clemence Landers, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development, Kevin Gallagher, director of the Global Development Policy Center at Boston University, Stephanie von Friedeburg, managing director of banking and capital markets advisory at Citi, and Rep. French Hill, a Republican from Arkansas, who is vice chair of the House Financial Services Committee.

As the war in Gaza stretches past the six-month mark, this week we had an exclusive story on Israel’s efforts to disrupt and dismantle UNRWA, the United Nations agency leading the humanitarian response for Palestinians. The agency — caught in a political war — was forced to ground its fleet of trucks, cars, and security specialists used by other U.N. agencies delivering support to those affected by the conflict. We have also been closely following the conversations around localization. A few months ago, a rural Sierra Leone-based nonprofit leader was unable to get a visa to a conference in Denmark — which led to an open letter demanding change in how convening spaces on locally led development should be organized. Four months later, it appears that some foundations, international organizations, and networks have committed to listening, including the U.S. Agency for International Development. We explore how localization can be more effectively carried out, including the need to move the headquarters of institutions closer to the communities they aim to serve, as well as having greater representation from the developing world in academia. Also on the topic of localization, we dug into the analysis of how much of USAID’s money went to local grantees in 2023. We found that the agency allocated around $1.3 billion to local partners via grants and cooperative agreements in 2023, which is the same amount as the previous fiscal year. To discuss these stories, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar sits down with Aude Darnal of the Stimson Center and Devex’s U.N. correspondent Colum Lynch for this week’s episode of the podcast series. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

Last week, we launched Roots of Change, a Devex series on locally led development, which explores how the localization agenda can be elevated from rhetoric to reality. We have been following the discussions around localization for the past couple of years and the progress made toward empowering local communities in shaping global development initiatives. As part of the series, we published an article that outlines five key takeaways we learned about the current state of the debate based on our coverage. We highlight that while progress is slow, change is inevitable. At the Inter-American Development Bank, major developments are underway. From changing how they operate to identifying new metrics of success, we dig into how the financial institution plans to become a better partner in development as it urges other MDBs to undergo reform as well. We also touch upon an interactive article we published on the U.S. Agency for International Development’s spending plan for the upcoming months. Find out how the agency is planning to distribute $25.6 billion, including the sectors and countries targeted. In the latest episode of the This Week in Global Development podcast, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar sits down with Nasra Ismail, U.S. enterprise executive director at Alight, and Devex Senior Reporter Adva Saldinger to discuss the global development stories above. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

Doing meaningful work doesn't have to come at the expense of your whole life. In fact, Alex Amouyel argues that anyone can create a life full of impact. In this episode of the Devex Book Club, Alex takes us through her own winding career trajectory, from her time as a scientist to her current role as President and CEO of Newman's Own Foundation, and shares that with enough will and determination, everyone has what it takes to make a difference.  For more information on upcoming episodes and to sign up for our mailing list, visit the Devex Book Club here: https://pages.devex.com/devex-book-club.html

This week, we reported that at the Employees at the International Foundation for Electoral Systems — a 37-year-old pro-democracy organization based outside Washington, D.C. — employees formed a new staff union to confront their organization’s president and CEO over labor rights. The issue is entangled within the wider debates of localization. While employees most certainly want to provide technical support to local partners, they do not believe that the process should undervalue the employees who provide it. At the end of last week, The Locally Led Development and Humanitarian Response Act was passed by the House Foreign Affairs Committee, legislation that would ease complexities in USAID's grantmaking process. While the bill still needs to clear the U.S. Senate, most seem hopeful it will do so. It is believed that the legislation would help USAID reach its localization targets, especially if it is passed before the U.S. general election in November. On the other side of the pond, a spending watchdog found that the creation of the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office has undermined the United Kingdom’s ability to carry out aid work. The report also raises the alarm that "staff have experienced change fatigue and are unhappy that key issues such as terms and conditions and career pathways have yet to be resolved.” To dig into these stories, and others, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar sits down with George Ingram and Fiona Zublin for the latest episode of the podcast series. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

Reframing six centuries of world history in a single book is no easy feat. Doing it in lively, engaging prose that keeps you hooked the whole way through is even harder. But such is the talent of Howard French, longtime foreign correspondent and author of Born in Blackness, our Devex Book Club selection for this month. For more information on upcoming episodes and to sign up for our mailing list, visit the Devex Book Club here: https://pages.devex.com/devex-book-club.html

This week, Devex is at the South by Southwest, or SXSW, conference and festival exploring innovations in food systems and agriculture, but we’ve also got stories on food as a weapon of war, the accusation that USAID meddled with Zimbabwe’s democratic process, and the utility of the Pandemic Fund. Hunger and starvation have become a standard weapon in combatants’ war arsenal everywhere from Afghanistan to Gaza to Syria, Sudan, and Ukraine, writes Senior Global Reporter Colum Lynch. But recently, some observers have seen a broader erosion of international laws and norms that promote the prohibition of food as a weapon of war or as a lever in diplomatic or humanitarian negotiations. We’ve also got an exclusive from Global Development Reporter Elissa Miolene on the accusation by the Zimbabwean ambassador to the United States that the U.S. Agency for International Development is interfering in the country’s democratic processes — calling USAID’s human rights and governance work a “gross violation” of Zimbabwe’s sovereignty. Finally, the Pandemic Fund wants to be the “main fund” for strengthening pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response, and has called against duplicated efforts as countries push for creating yet another fund in pandemic treaty negotiations, writes Senior Reporter Jenny Lei Ravelo. Joining President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar to break down these stories — and more — are Ertharin Cousin, founder and CEO of Food Systems for the Future, and Devex Executive Editor Kate Warren.

Last week, USAID unveiled its latest $5 billion global health supply contract, part of its NextGen suite of contracts. Worth $17 billion in total, it’s the largest suite of foreign aid contracts ever issued, to be delivered over the course of 10 years. But despite all the talk around localization, it’s highly likely the contracts will end up going to the usual industry players. “Most of the low- or middle-income countries, they can do without those USAID-funded contractors coming to do things for them,” said Olusoji Adeyi, president of Resilient Health Systems and a staunch advocate for the decolonization of the sector.  The previous iteration of USAID’s global health supply contract, worth $9.5 billion and delivered solely through Chemonics, failed to live up to expectations after running into multiple delays and performance problems. “USAID has refused to learn, and they are throwing $17 billion of taxpayer money after a failed business model,” said Adeyi. Listen to the latest episode of This Week in Global Development to hear Adeyi discuss this topic and the other big stories from the week with Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar and Managing Editor Anna Gawel.

Vitala Global Foundation is a nonprofit organization that works with girls and women to develop digital solutions for stigmatized sexual and reproductive health issues, including abortions. Last week, Aya Contigo, its digital companion for abortion and contraception support that launched in Venezuela and has since expanded to the United States, was a winner of South by Southwest’s Innovation Showcase. Dr. Roopan Gill, co-founder and CEO of Vitala Global Foundation, was in Austin, Texas, to talk about the role technology can play in providing more accessible reproductive health resources, especially amidst growing restrictions on reproductive rights. “It's not just an app providing passive information,” she said. “We're really trying to see how it acts as a glue, as an ecosystem integrator, especially in this day and age where we have so much complexity around abortion access.” Gill spoke with Devex for Devex @ SXSW, a special edition of our This Week in Global Development podcast. The episode also featured Jarone Lee, co-founder of Health Tech Without Borders, a nonprofit organization working on digital health solutions, including telemedicine and chatbots, in the context of humanitarian disasters. Listen to the podcast to hear how these two doctors turned social entrepreneurs are leveraging technology to improve health care access in some of the most challenging settings to deliver care.

There’s no question that artificial intelligence will have a massive impact on the future of food systems, but it remains to be seen whether it will address or perpetuate inequities. “I think the question is, how's it going to be used in our food system in a way that actually promotes all of the objectives that we want?” said Roy Steiner, senior vice president for the Food Initiative at The Rockefeller Foundation. “Technology tends to be a fairly neutral tool. It multiplies whatever is underneath it. So if we have a completely inequitable system, it will multiply the inequity.”   Steiner spoke with Devex on the sidelines of South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, where conversations focused on the ways technology will transform every aspect of society, including the way the world grows, produces, distributes, supplies, and consumes food. The current food system is detrimental environmentally, socially, and nutritionally, Steiner said, adding that he’s hopeful that technological advancements can help the world transition to a more regenerative and equitable system. Listen to the episode to hear more about the future of food systems on Devex @ SXSW, a special edition of our This Week in Global Development podcast. The podcast also features Paul Newnham, executive director of the SDG2 Advocacy Hub, which coordinates global advocacy in support of food system transformation, and Joke Aerts, open chain lead at Tony’s Chocolonely, a company on a mission to end modern slavery and illegal child labor in cocoa.

The world needs new approaches, not just more funding, as it faces a financing gap of an estimated $4 trillion annually to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs. “We’re either going to find this money somewhere under the cushions … or we’re going to make it cheaper,” said Hala Hanna, executive director of Solve, an initiative of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that launches open calls and backs innovators working to solve global problems. “So we really believe that innovation and finding new voices and new ideas is one key part of doing that.”  Devex spoke with Hanna at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. She drew on some of the same themes as Najada Kumbuli, head of investments at the Visa Foundation, and Nazanin Ash, CEO of Welcome.US. Each of them discussed the ways their organizations leverage innovation, technology, and investment to support new solutions for the SDGs that won’t come from traditional models. Listen to the episode to hear more on their strategies to build a more equitable future on Devex @SXSW, a special edition of our This Week in Global Development podcast.

It’s no surprise that Anne Marie Burgoyne, managing director of Emerson Collective, had a long line of people forming to meet with her following her session at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas Wednesday. Burgoyne leads philanthropy for this social change organization started by Laurene Powell Jobs.  Devex's Kate Warren spoke with Burgoyne about Emerson Collective’s unique approach, its growing work on climate through the Waverley Street Foundation, and how Emerson Collective looks at the role of artificial intelligence in social change.  Listen to the episode to hear more from Burgoyne on Devex @ SXSW, a special edition of our This Week in Global Development podcast.

Next year marks 30 years since the start of the International Crisis Group, which conducts research and analysis to prevent and resolve global conflict. Comfort Ero, president and CEO of Crisis Group, says the organization was “made for this moment,” as crises continue to unfold from Gaza to Haiti to Ukraine. She spoke with Devex on the sidelines of South by Southwest, an annual conference in Austin, Texas, about America's role in the world, ahead of a high stakes U.S. presidential election, as well as the war in Gaza, and how the climate crisis and the rise of AI are shaping the future of conflict. “Our job is to find the political will, and to create ideas beyond the headlines, to get away from the noise, and to quietly try to thread the needle in a very complex and very dangerous world,” Ero said. Listen to the episode to hear more from Ero on Devex @ SXSW, a special edition of This Week in Global Development.

This week we published an article on how USAID spent its money last year. We noted that the agency spent $38.1 billion through its assistance and acquisition mechanism in the fiscal year that ended in September 2023. From the data it is evident that USAID has increased its spending for humanitarian crises, including the war in Ukraine. The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention released their wishlist for the pandemic treaty. However, with countries in the global north — including the United Kingdom, Germany, and France — slashing their aid budgets, questions are being raised about whether there is an appetite for another pandemic financing mechanism, which is among one of the agency’s asks. On the topic of the Africa CDC, its acting deputy director-general, Dr. Ahmed Ogwell Ouma, is resigning from the organization this month as he wasn't allowed to apply for the deputy director-general position due to country quotas. Dr. Raji Tajudeen will become the acting deputy director-general until a formal appointment is made. To dig into these stories and others, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar sits down with Patrick Fine from Brookings and Devex Associate Editor Rumbi Chakamba for the latest episode of our weekly podcast series. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

This week Devex published an exclusive story on how Ghana-based NGO Youth Opportunity & Transformation in Africa, or YOTA, is embroiled in a dispute with CARE Ghana over a decision to raise staff salaries during an economic crisis where inflation was spiraling and staffers found it difficult to make ends meet. YOTA, which is one of two implementing partners, is accusing grant holder CARE Ghana of “bullying.” The story highlights some of the challenges that global development organizations are facing as they continue to try to localize. In Asia, a series of leaked trade agreement drafts highlight growing divisions within India’s flourishing pharmaceutical industry, with the leaked documents sparking concerns over access to generic medicines. We also elaborate on the reasoning behind what made it onto our list of 24 global development organizations to watch in 2024, which we published this week. What’s next for global pharmaceutical manufacturing? Which organizations are missing from our list? For the latest episode of the podcast series, Devex Senior Reporter Adva Saldinger sits down with Dr. Jen Kates — senior vice president and director of global health and HIV policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation devex — as well as Devex Senior Reporter Sara Jerving to discuss the stories above, and more. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

Last weekend we attended the Munich Security Conference, a summit which is not as solely centered around security as its name suggests. We look back at the highlights and lowlights of the conference, which touched upon many issues linked to global development, including food security and climate change. We also have an update on the future of UNRWA, the United Nations Palestinian relief agency, which is facing calls to be disbanded. The United States is pushing other U.N. relief agencies to take over some of its functions. However, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has voiced concern that weakening UNRWA amid a massive humanitarian crisis would worsen the suffering of Palestinian civilians — as he believes it is the only organization with the capability to deliver assistance to the 2.2 million people with urgent needs. On the topic of U.N. agencies, we also published an exclusive story revealing that the U.N. Population Fund is planning to move a quarter of its New York staff positions to Nairobi in 2025 to be closer to the people it serves. However, not everyone is convinced that the move is the right one, and some staff are stressed about the relocation. In order to dig into these stories, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar sits down with U.K. Correspondent Rob Merrick and Managing Editor Anna Gawel for the latest episode of our This Week in Global Development podcast series. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

During the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference in Dubai, more than 110 countries committed to triple renewable energy capacity worldwide by 2030. Africa, in particular, is a key source of critical minerals such as copper, lithium, nickel, and cobalt, which are needed to power clean technologies ranging from electric vehicles to wind turbines. But without proper safeguards in place, there is a risk that the mining of minerals for the green energy transition could end up exacerbating existing inequalities. “One key element is social equity; prioritizing vulnerable communities to ensure that they benefit from the transition, including job creation, access to affordable clean energy, and protection from adverse impacts,” said professor Youba Sokona, former vice-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Professor Sokona was joined by Yamide Dagnet, former director of climate justice at Open Society Foundations, and Devex’s Raj Kumar for a special episode of This Week in Global Development.

Recently, the U.S. Agency for International Development published 14 "good practices" to define what a locally led program looks like as part of its push for half its projects to be locally led by 2030. We spoke to local community leaders to find out what they think. While many are optimistic, some have argued that they haven’t seen much change just yet and expressed concern about whether these indicators will translate into action. For one thing, USAID’s localization guidelines do not specify whether local people can voice whether they believe a program is locally led or not. On the topic of involving local communities in development initiatives, we also published an opinion piece outlining how decolonization must be applied to organizational design, the distribution of money, and how skill sets are valued. Additionally, this week, the U.S. Senate passed a $95 billion emergency funding bill. While much of it is military spending, it includes about $10 billion in humanitarian aid. It now heads to the House of Representatives. Advocates are pushing the House to approve it, though its future is uncertain as political tensions continue. For this week’s episode of our This Week in Global Development podcast series, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar sits down with Nicole Goldin, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center, as well as Devex Business Editor David Ainsworth to discuss these stories. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

This week we published an article on the development finance issues to watch in 2024. From fresh climate finance targets to the role that private capital mobilization can play in overcoming global development challenges, we discuss what we expect from the upcoming year and whether the ideas proposed will lead to tangible change in low-income countries. On the topic of capital increase, at an event on Monday, World Bank President Ajay Banga discussed his plans to reform the way the institution runs, including speeding up project approvals and streamlining the International Development Association ahead of its replenishment this year. It is hoped that the reforms will help increase the capital needed to overcome development challenges. Are the proposed reforms to the development finance architecture achievable? What is missing from the agenda? To answer these questions and dig into these stories, as well as others, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar sits down with Global Nation co-founder Jonathan Glennie, as well as Devex Senior Reporter Adva Saldinger, for the latest episode of our weekly podcast series. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

As we approach the U.S. presidential election in November, we take a look at how the Biden administration set out to change the U.S. government’s foreign aid system. With less than a year left in his term, we consider whether the targets set can be realistically achieved this year. As USAID continues its effort to localize — or shift power to local organizations — we also dig into a report on the topic based on the feedback of 300 local organizations, international agencies, and USAID staff. The report outlined what needs to change for the agency to reach its localization goals. Meanwhile in the Middle East, U.N. relief workers are being accused of having participated in the Hamas massacre that took place on Oct 7. The U.S. and other major donors have said they’ll cut funding to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, or UNRWA, stripping people affected by the conflict in Gaza from vital funding. To dig into these stories and others, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar sits down with reporters Colum Lynch and Elissa Miolene for the latest edition of the podcast series. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

2023 was the hottest year on record. So it’s no surprise that the climate emergency was a big focus of last week’s World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. Devex’s Raj Kumar sat down with several leaders to discuss how the climate crisis intersects with their work: Peter Sands, the executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; Sophie Atiende, CEO of the Global Fund to End Modern Slavery; and Jonathan Reckford, CEO of Habitat for Humanity. Together, they explore the interconnections between climate change and the issues they are focused on, as well as the urgency for action. Sands describes a visit to northern Nigeria with Muhammad Ali Pate, the country’s minister of health and social welfare, where they saw “a shocking number” of children who were malnourished and severely ill with malaria. “It’s a good example of how the climate change interaction is sort of multifactorial,” he said, explaining how climate change is harming agricultural productivity, leading to malnutrition, and changing the epidemiology of malaria. “The combined impact of that is more severely ill children and more deaths of small children,” Sands said. “That's the kind of thing we're still trying to understand. But my view is we need to act while we learn. We can't wait for a perfect answer; we need to be doing more in anticipation of how we see this unfolding.” Listen to the episode to hear more from Sands, Atiende, and Reckord, who joined Kumar for the Davos Dispatch podcast, recorded from WEF in Davos, Switzerland.

A new report reveals serious gaps in the clinical pipeline for diseases with pandemic potential, and limited investments in their research and development over the years. While research and development funding for COVID-19 reached over $14 billion from 2020 to 2022, the combined research funding for the other nine priority pathogens with pandemic potential identified by the World Health Organization total just $1.7 billion. We dig into the report — which comes from the International Pandemic Preparedness Secretariat — as well as how we could improve our preparedness for the next pandemic. Despite the concerns about global pandemic preparedness, we have seen a landmark moment in the fight against malaria, with Cameroon becoming the first African country to roll out WHO's first recommended malaria vaccine into its routine immunization program. This week also marked the 20th anniversary of the creation of the Millenium Challenge Corporation, or MCC, a U.S. aid agency which set out to help the lowest-income countries clinch large grants if they could turn their economic and social policies around and demonstrate good governance. However, concerns remain over where they can operate in the future based on their unique model. For the latest episode of our This Week in Global Development podcast series, Devex President & Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar sat down with Ayoade Alakija from AVDA/ACT-Accelerator and Devex Senior Reporter Adva Saldinger to dig into these key stories. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

There are a growing number of social entrepreneurs using technology to address a range of development challenges in Africa, from agriculture healthcare to education. But many of them say that financing is the greatest barrier to scale. At the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2024, Devex’s Raj Kumar sat down with three social entrepreneurs: Temie Giwa-Tubosun, CEO of LifeBank, a healthcare technology and logistics company delivering critical medical supplies, Gerald Abila, founder of BarefootLaw, a non-profit in Uganda providing access to justice through technology, and Mayur Patel, chief commercial officer at M-Kopa, an asset financing platform in Africa. Their conversations point to several ways social entrepreneurs are using technology to address social challenges, as well as the crucial role financing must play in scaling their impact. "The big barriers for growth are not demand,” Patel said. “They're not the scalability of the platform, or the opportunity. The big barriers to growth are figuring out how you solve the working capital cycle.” Listen to the episode to hear more from Giwa-Tubosun, Abila, and Patel, who joined Kumar for the Davos Dispatch podcast, recorded from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

It’s a big moment for the United Nations Green Climate Fund. Its funding levels hit a record high following the climate conference COP 28, with several countries adding contributions to its second replenishment that sent the fund’s total soaring past its $10 billion goal to $12.8 billion. GCF’s Executive Director Mafalda Duarte oversaw the replenishment after assuming the role only three months prior, having departed her previous job as the head of the Climate Investment Funds in June. Somewhere in there, she was also at the Africa Climate Summit, the U.N. General Assembly, and multiple other global engagements. “Quite intense,” she acknowledged to Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar in Davos, Switzerland, the latest stop on her whirlwind travel agenda. But if Duarte has been busy, it’s because she’s making huge strides at an organization that was in a notably rocky place a few years ago. On this episode of Davos Dispatch, a series housed under our regular weekly podcast, This Week in Global Development, Duarte gives us the scoop on what’s next for GCF and its role in climate change mitigation and adaptation.

This week we are in Davos closely following the conversations taking place at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. This year’s discussions have focused heavily on artificial intelligence and its potential impact on the humanitarian and development sectors. We also dig into our key takeaways from the conference, along with the question of whether we have reached a turning point when it comes to giving a voice to the global south. In addition to AI, climate change also took center stage at the summit, and we contemplate whether this is an indication that leaders are recognizing the gravity of the situation and its link to issues around global health. Will AI transform global development? And what impact will blockchain technology have on the sector? For the latest edition of our podcast series, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar sat down with Hedera Chief Policy Officer Nilmini Rubin and BRAC Executive Director Asif Saleh to discuss the top global development stories from the past week. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

The “billions to trillions” narrative — the idea that a relatively small amount of public financing can be used to crowd in trillions of dollars in private capital to solve climate and other development challenges — has been discussed in development finance circles for nearly a decade now. And yet there’s still an annual $4 trillion gap in financing for energy, water, and other critical development objectives. Speaking to Devex’s Raj Kumar, Samaila Zubairu, CEO of the Africa Finance Corporation shared how his organization is leveraging public-private partnerships in “risky” countries such as Gabon and Djibouti, and what larger multilateral development banks should be doing to be more effective. “What is most important is for us to introduce more urgency in our approach to work. We need to really start to focus on outcomes,” Zubairu said. “We should all be accountable. We should be looking at what's the baseline at a certain period of time, and what are we doing to cause improvements to happen.” Zubairu joined Kumar for the Davos Dispatch podcast, recorded from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

While a new year for many heralds a fresh start, the war that broke out in Gaza in October 2023 continues to rage, with the death toll numbering in the thousands. We take a look at the conflict from a global development and humanitarian lens by speaking with representatives from organizations doing aid work there to get an insider perspective on the crisis. They reveal the obstacles they face — such as the lack of fuel and inability to keep in touch with staff — and how they try to meet the needs of those affected by the war. What is the situation like on the ground? What are the misconceptions in the media? To find out, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar and Managing Editor Anna Gawel sit down with Arnaud Quemin, Middle East-North Africa/Europe regional director for Mercy Corps, as well as Anera Regional Development Lead Saddam Sayyaleh for the latest episode of the This Week in Global Development podcast. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

The middle class is the most successful group in world history, but today, it’s facing a bit of an identity crisis. The realities of automation, climate change and other factors are straining the once ubiquitous middle class dream, and younger generations are questioning whether it’s really all it’s cracked up to be. In his new book, "The Rise of the Global Middle Class: How the Search for the Good Life Can Change the World," economist and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Sustainable Development Homi Kharas traces the evolution of the middle class all the way from its roots in Victorian England, and ultimately offers a new policy agenda that could pave a way forward. For more information on upcoming episodes and to sign up for our mailing list, visit the Devex Book Club here: https://pages.devex.com/devex-book-club.html

Like many of us, Rajiv Shah knew early on that he wanted to make an impact on the world, but he wasn’t quite sure how to do it. His book, "Big Bets: How Large-Scale Change Really Happens," opens with some of that early uncertainty, like the summer he spent treating leprosy patients in India, and his time working on Al Gore’s ultimately doomed campaign. But as Raj writes in his book, that uncertainty was all part of an important realization he’d eventually come to: that large-scale change doesn’t come from caution, but from what he calls a “big bets philosophy,” which says that it’s only by trying to fundamentally solve, not just improve, pressing problems that the world can truly be transformed. For more information on upcoming episodes and to sign up for our mailing list, visit the Devex Book Club here: https://pages.devex.com/devex-book-club.html

The agreement to operationalize a new fund for loss and damage was a key achievement of this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP 28. But key questions remain about how that fund will work to get financial resources to countries experiencing the impacts of climate change. It’s part of a broader conversation about climate vulnerability and resilience — how to measure it, how it relates to a country’s income status, and how to quantify the costs of climate change impacts. “These are things that will be with you forever — your entire trajectory, your entire life, your entire space has changed fundamentally and in a permanent way. So the solutions cannot be sliced and diced solutions,” argues Gene Leon, president of the Caribbean Development Bank, in this episode of the Climate + podcast. Leon outlined how support for countries experiencing loss and damage due to climate change can help them regain their footing — and rediscover an economic growth trajectory on a changing planet. The Climate + podcast is supported by the World Bank: https://www.devex.com/organizations/world-bank-group-38382

This Week in Global Development is back for its first episode of the New Year, and this week, we took a look ahead at what we can expect to come down the pike in 2024. It’s an election year in the U.S., and bipartisanship is in short supply. Many of the legislative challenges of 2023—including those around foreign aid— are carrying into the new year, adding more pressure to a dam that’s already quite full. Republican presidential hopefuls are even going so far as to call for the defunding of the United Nations. Luckily, not everything comes down to funding—we also discussed the U.S. Agency for International Development’s new Locally Led Programs indicator, which sets a standard for determining whether a given program can be considered, well, locally led. Joining Devex’s President and Editor-in-Chief to break down these topics is Stefan Dercon, the former chief economist at the U.K. Department of International Development and current Professor of Economic Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, as well as Devex Managing Editor Anna Gawel. Welcome to 2024, and thanks for tuning in! Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

The United Nations climate change conference in Dubai, or COP 28, was a big moment for food systems. For the first time, COP included a day dedicated to food and agriculture, which many see as an important signal that silos between climate and food policy are starting to break down. Still, less than 5% of climate finance is invested in food systems, despite the massive need for financial support for priorities such as regenerative agriculture, reducing food loss and waste, and sustainable livestock management, says Ertharin Cousin, former head of the World Food Programme, in this episode of Devex’s Climate + podcast. “Ensuring that we are part of the finance dialogue is as critical as ensuring that we are part of the substantive dialogue around the actions,” Cousin said. It’s an urgent challenge, considering existing — and increasing — levels of food insecurity, and what a changing climate likely means for those unserved by the existing food system, says Ismahane Elouafi, chief scientist at the Food and Agriculture Organization. “It’s broken because it’s not nourishing us. It’s broken because it’s part of the climate crisis … and it’s broken because we haven’t been able to use agriculture, really, to uplift people from poverty,” Elouafi said. The Climate + podcast is supported by the World Bank.

The annual United Nations climate conferences, or COPs, have become much more than just a forum for technical and political negotiations. They’re also a convening space for representatives from the likes of civil society, academia, and the private sector. Corporations now have an increasingly significant role to play in shaping the climate conversation and — crucially — in ensuring their own operations are environmentally sustainable. For a global technology company like Microsoft, being present at COP is important not just because of the potential tools and solutions the company can offer, but also due to the implications of climate change for its business and operations, said Melanie Nakagawa, Microsoft’s Chief Sustainability Officer. Joining the Climate + podcast from COP28 in Dubai, Nakagawa shared Microsoft's priorities around investing in carbon removal, using artificial intelligence to accelerate progress on sustainability, and improving sustainability reporting mechanisms and governance. “We want to make sure corporations are stepping up and doing what they can do to rapidly reduce emissions, and… to remove what they can't,” Nakagawa said. The Climate + podcast is supported by the World Bank. To learn more about efforts to end poverty on a livable planet, check out the link.

The Paris Climate Agreement, established at COP 21 in 2015, calls for leaders and institutions across society to work towards reducing their carbon emissions with the aim of reaching net zero by 2050. Multilateral development banks, or MDBs, which have a critical role to play in the climate finance landscape, are in the process of figuring out what it means to deliver on their commitment to “Paris alignment”. “Delivery means really, for us, implementing what we have committed to do and working with the countries in which we invest in order to accompany them in this green transition,” said Odile Renaud-Basso, President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, in the latest episode of the Climate + podcast. EBRD aims for 50% of its investments to be in support of the green transition by 2025, she added. Renaud-Basso joined Devex senior reporter Adva Saldinger to delve deeper into EBRD’s climate priorities, the bank’s approach and timeline for phasing out investments in fossil fuels, what MDBs can do to mobilize more private capital for climate investments, and how MDBs can work better together to support countries with their climate goals. This podcast episode was recorded with a live online audience as part of Devex’s wider Climate + event programming at COP 28. The Climate + podcast is supported by the World Bank. To learn more about efforts to end poverty on a livable planet, check out the link.

Last week we traveled to Dubai to attend the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP 28, where apart from hosting our event on the sidelines of the main conference, we also reported on the negotiations taking place. We look back at the main takeaways from COP 28, including the pledges made by philanthropic organizations, and contemplate whether the commitments made by countries will be followed through. While it is recognized that issues related to health, food, and energy are interconnected and linked to climate change, this understanding needs to be included within policies and future development strategies, experts tell us. Following USAID’s announcement of the 14 measures it will use to track its target of having half of its projects be locally led by 2030, we debate whether it will successfully drive meaningful change, or just lead to tokenistic box-check efforts to localize. We also reported on the ongoing leadership crisis World Food Programme chief Cindy McCain is facing over the conflict in Gaza. To dig into these stories and key takeaways from COP 28, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar sits down with Larry Cooley, the president emeritus and senior adviser at Management Systems International, as well as GiveDirectly Vice President of Partnerships Yolande Wright, for the latest episode of our This Week in Global Development podcast. This is the final episode of the year. We will resume the podcast series in January. Thanks for listening! Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

The United Nations climate conference, or COP 28, kicked off with a great deal of optimism as the loss and damage fund was established and countries made their first pledges to contribute. However, concerns remain on whether money channeled through the scheme will really reach its intended recipients. An alternative model to this is the one utilized by GiveDirectly, the U.K. charity that provides direct cash transfers to vulnerable households. To find out more about the organization — including how they might help people in areas prone to climate disasters — Devex Executive Vice President and Executive Editor Kate Warren sat down with GiveDirectly’s vice president for partnerships, Yolande Wright, for this episode of the Climate + podcast. During the conversation, Wright highlights the effectiveness of lump sum cash transfers in helping households build resilience to climate change by investing in livelihoods and improving homes, as well as their ability to address systemic issues — such as infrastructure and gender equality — to support long-term sustainable development. They also dug into the importance of having access to good data and how the rise of artificial intelligence will enable cash transfer targeting to become more efficient. “I think there’s been a tendency of development experts to spend a long time designing and consulting on programs and deciding how best donor money should be spent,” Wright points out during the conversation. She argues that people facing the challenges of climate change in the global south “are best placed to make their own decisions about how they invest their money.” The Climate + podcast is supported by the World Bank. To learn more about efforts to end poverty on a livable planet, check out the link: https://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/the-world-bank-at-cop28

For too long, Indigenous peoples were sidelined from the climate negotiations process, despite being among the most directly affected by climate change. That changed at COP 26 in Glasgow, when for the first time in the history of the UN climate conferences, indigenous representatives were invited to engage directly and share experiences with governments. Indigenous leaders, however, argue that there is still a long way to go towards having their rights sufficiently recognized. “We see that at least we have some spaces that we occupy, and mechanisms which allow better participation, but we still have to do much more at the national levels,” said Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, in the latest episode of Climate +. Tauli-Corpuz said she and other Indigenous representatives are calling for Indigenous peoples’ rights, territories, and knowledge to be recognized in countries’ national climate mitigation plans (known as nationally determined contributions, or NDCs). Tauli-Corpuz, who is a member of the Kankanaey Igorot people of the Cordillera Region in the Philippines, also shared her own experiences of being targeted by the government as an environmental defender, why direct access to climate finance is still a pain point for Indigenous communities, and what needs to happen to safeguard Indigenous peoples’ rights in the face of the renewable energy transition. The Climate + podcast is supported by the World Bank. To learn more about efforts to end poverty on a livable planet, visit: https://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/the-world-bank-at-cop28

This year’s U.N. Climate Conference has already been a historic one in the nearly 30-year timespan of the COP process because it’s the first time there’s been a day dedicated to the linkages between climate change and health. Health advocates are drawing attention to the growing public health emergency surrounding the burning of fossil fuels, especially in the wake of controversial comments made by COP 28 President Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber in which he said there is “no science” that says phasing out fossil fuels is necessary to keep global warming in check. “Fossil fuel phase-out is the most effective and the most important public health intervention of our times,” said Marina Romanello, executive director of the Lancet Countdown on climate change and health. Romanello joined Devex global health reporter Jenny Lei Ravelo on the ground at COP 28 for the latest episode of the Climate + podcast. “We heard from Dr. al-Jaber talking that there’s no scientific evidence — that's absolute nonsense,” Romanello said. “There’s more than enough scientific evidence showing us that we absolutely are in trouble, that we absolutely must phase out fossil fuels.” The Climate + podcast is supported by the World Bank. To learn more about efforts to end poverty on a livable planet, visit: https://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/the-world-bank-at-cop28 Join Devex on Dec. 7 on the sidelines of COP 28 in Dubai or online from anywhere for the Climate + summit. Register here.

This week we traveled to Dubai to follow the discussions at COP 28, the U.N. climate summit, and to find out what the outcomes of the negotiations could mean for the global development sector. The first day saw the creation of a loss and damage fund designed to compensate the lowest-income nations most heavily affected by the negative impact of climate change. While the move is a step in the right direction, activists hope that the wealthiest and most-polluting nations will follow through on their pledges. For countries such as Somalia — which is trying to bring in climate funding as it continues to battle drought and food insecurity — the fund could be a much-needed lifeline. With the country experiencing heavy rains and flooding that has affected some 1.7 million people and displaced nearly 700,000 from their homes, Somalia is relying more than ever on external support to face the crisis. We also dug into the climate and health nexus. Recognizing the negative health impacts of climate change, this is the first year that a day has been dedicated to health on the COP agenda. Around $2.7 billion was also pledged to health initiatives linked to climate change. However, questions remain on how much of this is actually new funding. During the discussion, we also identified the summit as an opportunity to encourage renewable energy investment in low- and middle-income countries, leapfrogging fossil fuels when bringing power to communities in the global south for the first time. What do we make of COP 28? For this week’s episode of the podcast, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar sits down with Africa Climate Ventures Co-Founder and CEO James Mwangi, as well as Devex Senior Reporter Sara Jerving to discuss the conference and more. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

This year’s U.N. Climate Conference has already been a historic one in the nearly 30-year timespan of the COP process because it’s the first time there’s been a day dedicated to the linkages between climate change and health. Health advocates are drawing attention to the growing public health emergency surrounding the burning of fossil fuels, especially in the wake of controversial comments made by COP 28 President Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber in which he said there is “no science” that says phasing out fossil fuels is necessary to keep global warming in check. “Fossil fuel phase-out is the most effective and the most important public health intervention of our times,” said Marina Romanello, executive director of the Lancet Countdown on climate change and health. Romanello joined Devex global health reporter Jenny Lei Ravelo on the ground at COP 28 for the latest episode of the Climate + podcast. “We heard from Dr. al-Jaber talking that there’s no scientific evidence — that's absolute nonsense,” Romanello said. “There’s more than enough scientific evidence showing us that we absolutely are in trouble, that we absolutely must phase out fossil fuels.” The Climate + podcast is supported by the World Bank. To learn more about efforts to end poverty on a livable planet, visit: https://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/the-world-bank-at-cop28 Join Devex on Dec. 7 on the sidelines of COP 28 in Dubai or online from anywhere for the Climate + summit. Register here.

The United Nations Climate Change Conference known as COP is an imperfect forum for achieving progress on climate change. The discourse that unfolds there is dominated by the global north. Any action agreed upon is nonbinding. It’s heavily attended — and influenced — by lobbyists for the fossil fuel industry. It may not be the forum we need, but it’s the forum we have, Kumi Naidoo, a climate activist and the former executive director of Greenpeace International, told Devex on the most recent episode of our Climate+ podcast. “The way I see COP is it's about getting the best out of the really bad system,” he said. COP’s strength lies in its power to shape the narrative around climate change, which up until this point has failed to engage both citizens and governments on the scale that it needs to. According to Naidoo, the climate movement needs to go beyond data and facts in its messaging — it needs to appeal to emotions, too. Breaking climate out of its silo and recognizing its interconnectedness with human rights, development, and economic systems is the only way forward, and COP has the potential to get that message broadcast on a large scale. "The reality is that we are seeing, on a weekly basis now, around the world, extreme weather events which are clearly climate-induced events, which are taking lives, damaging infrastructure, destroying livelihoods, and so on,” he said. “Being able to draw attention to those things using the COP as a communicative opportunity is what activism needs to do." The Climate + podcast is supported by the World Bank. To learn more about efforts to end poverty on a livable planet, visit: https://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/the-world-bank-at-cop28 Join Devex on Dec. 7 on the sidelines of COP 28 in Dubai or online from anywhere for the Climate + summit. Register here.

The 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP 28, kicked off this Thursday. As with the summits in previous years, we arrive with the usual set of questions: Will pledges be met? Are the biggest polluters going to commit to support the most in need? Will the conference lead to meaningful change? The first day saw an agreement reached over a loss and damage fund, with countries already making initial pledges, including the United Arab Emirates, the United States, and Germany. However, many say that the amount committed is not enough given the size of the economies of these nations. According to the U.N. Environment Programme, it is estimated that 80% of people displaced by climate change will be women. With a heavy focus on financial pledges, we contemplate whether the summit will deliver to meet the needs of women affected by the climate crisis. We also discuss an article published this week on MacKenzie Scott's unconventional style of giving large, unrestricted gifts to nonprofits, which was criticized due to concerns over the ability of smaller, newer, and grassroots nonprofits being able to absorb such large amounts of funds. To dig into these topics, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar sits down with Daughters for Earth and Women for Women co-founder Zainab Salbi, who tunes in live from Dubai, as well as Devex Senior Reporter Michael Igoe, to discuss the top global development stories from the past week. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

There was a time when world leaders and climate activists mostly spoke about climate change within the framework of mitigating its impacts by taking actions such as reducing fossil fuel consumption and the flow of heat-trapping greenhouse gasses. Little was said about how to help communities adapt to the impacts of climate change. Data is consistently showing us that climate change will most heavily affect the global south through extreme weather events, including heat waves, droughts, and flooding. Nevertheless, there is room for optimism. Devex Senior Reporter Stephanie Beasley sat down with Enock Chikava, who leads the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s agricultural development program, for the fifth episode of Devex’s Climate + podcast to find out about the initiatives the philanthropic organization is supporting to help the agricultural sector in the global south adapt to a changing climate. In addition to providing insights on the work being done already — such as the breeding of chickens that thrive in tropical conditions, as well as the development of an artificial intelligence-powered platform to match local crops with consumer needs — Chikava also stressed the importance of involving women in decision making and policymaking in agriculture and the need for climate finance to flow to those who need it most. Despite the positive stories, Chikava believes it is critical for the world “to realize and understand that there is a climate injustice” to help make decisions at COP 28, the U.N. climate summit, that support agricultural stakeholders in low- and middle-income countries in the face of the climate crisis. The Climate + podcast is supported by the World Bank. To learn more about efforts to end poverty on a livable planet, check out the following link: https://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/the-world-bank-at-cop28 Join Devex on Dec. 7 on the sidelines of COP 28 in Dubai or online from anywhere for the Climate + summit. Register here: https://pages.devex.com/devex-at-cop-28.html

The Bridgetown Initiative, an ambitious set of proposals to overhaul how development finance works spearheaded by Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, has been front and center of discussions about climate finance since its unveiling at last year’s United Nations Climate Conference, or COP 27. The initiative aims to address some of the inequalities that exist in the current financial architecture, such as the fact that high-income countries are able to borrow at much more favorable interest rates than lower-income countries, by calling for additional financial support to countries, help with debt restructurings, and more private capital for green projects in low- and middle-income countries. Pepukaye Bardouille, who herself comes from the climate-vulnerable Caribbean island nation of Dominica, is director of the Bridgetown Initiative unit of the Barbados government. She joined Raj Kumar on the Climate + podcast to discuss how to make development finance institutions fit for purpose and why the availability of cheaper, longer-term financing is critical for addressing climate change. “It's not just about reallocating the resources that are currently available. It's about growing the pie,” said Bardouille. “The reality is that the financing that has been committed to address the crises that we're facing globally is simply not enough.” The Climate + podcast is supported by the World Bank. To learn more about efforts to end poverty on a livable planet, visit: https://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/the-world-bank-at-cop28 Join Devex on Dec. 7 on the sidelines of COP 28 in Dubai or online from anywhere for the Climate + summit. Register here.

The decision to establish a loss and damage fund to provide financial assistance to countries affected by climate disasters was hailed as one of the biggest achievements at last year’s climate conference, or COP. One year later, reaching an agreement on how that fund will be operationalized is widely seen as a benchmark for success at COP 28. While negotiators managed to agree on a draft framework for the fund earlier this month, multiple points of tension remain. Developing countries and civil society organizations were disappointed with the proposal to house the fund in the World Bank, at least for an interim period, rather than as an independent fund under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, as well as the decision to limit eligibility for funding to small island states and least developed countries rather than all vulnerable countries. Harjeet Singh has been campaigning on this issue for years, and as the head of global political strategy at Climate Action Network International, a global network of NGOs fighting climate change, he’s now calling for rich countries to stop dragging their feet while climate-vulnerable countries pay the price. “That message of hope coming out of COP 28 is extremely important. We cannot arrive at a conclusion saying it’s a work in progress,” Singh said in the second episode of Devex’s Climate + podcast. “Now it’s about really delivering it to the people and for the people.” Climate + is supported by the World Bank. To learn more about efforts to end poverty on a livable planet, visit: https://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/the-world-bank-at-cop28

The latest edition of This Week in Development takes both a ground-level and 30,000-foot view of localization and the latest issues in development, ranging from unpaid workers in Nigeria to a YouTube influencer-turned-do-gooder to a climate fund struggling to get up to speed. Sara Jerving’s exclusive story offers an object lesson on the importance of coordination and collaboration in large, sprawling development endeavors with multiple stakeholders. She reports on the Saving Lives and Livelihoods initiative, which involved the Mastercard Foundation, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, and several other players such as implementers, government agencies, and auditors. The result? Confusion about how workers in Nigeria — who were not given formal contracts when they were recruited — should be paid, leading to months’ worth of unpaid labor for some. “This highlights a bigger program in our development space and that is, it shows that process is more important than people,” said George Ingram, senior fellow at the Brookings Center for Global Development. “It’s the green-eyeshade people who are important to ensure there’s not a lot of corruption, but they too often rule and interfere with having effective development, and donors and everybody needs to be willing to take a little more risk in order to get the development impact we’re looking for.” Ingram joined Devex Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar and me for a discussion that touched on other stories of the week, including the successes and challenges of cash transfers, the Green Climate Fund’s flagging efforts to simplify its application process, and the controversial efforts of YouTube sensation MrBeast to build water wells in Africa, which generated some blowback. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

Hakima El-Haite knows what it takes to host a U.N. climate conference. The former Moroccan environment minister served as vice president of COP21 — where the Paris Climate Agreement was signed — and then played a key role in bringing the next climate summit to her home country. Since then, a global pandemic, debt crisis, multiple wars and rising geopolitical tensions have narrowed the space for international cooperation. “We need to come back again and to build the trust, because today the trust is eroded. Many promises from the Paris Agreement were not kept,” El-Haite said in this first episode of Devex’s Climate + podcast. Climate + is supported by the World Bank. To learn more about efforts to end poverty on a livable planet, visit: https://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/the-world-bank-at-cop28 Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters.

Climate + is our new twice-weekly podcast, publishing in the lead up to, during, and after this year's UN climate conference in Dubai. . Join Devex senior reporter Michael Igoe as we speak with COP insiders and experts, campaigners, and contrarians to ask — can COP28 deliver? . Subscribe now to Climate +, wherever you get your podcasts.

Ten years ago, the U.S. Agency for International Development unveiled the largest project in its history, hoping it would revolutionize health supply chains around the world to such an extent that it would be the last such contract of its kind. Devex Senior Reporter Michael Igoe details how these hopes were dashed in an investigative report that was the subject of the latest edition of the This Week in Global Development podcast. Speaking to Devex Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar and Fatema Sumar of Harvard’s Center for International Development, Igoe pulls back the curtain on the $9.5 billion contract, which was led by U.S.-based behemoth Chemonics International. His report — done in conjunction with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism — chronicles the early failings of the supply chain project, including a low point when a dismal 7% of shipments arrived at their destinations on time, forcing multiple countries to scramble as they ran short of lifesaving health products ranging from HIV/AIDS drugs to mosquito nets. The three speakers also discussed the nuances of aid spending to curb migration and the progress — or lack thereof, depending on your perspective — of the hotly debated loss and damage fund to compensate vulnerable countries for the effects of climate change. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters.

The future of PEPFAR, the flagship United States global HIV/AIDS program credited with saving millions of lives over the past couple of decades, hangs in the balance due to an ongoing political stalemate and accusations that it funds abortion. This week we looked into what the uncertainty over its reauthorization means for organizations dependent on its funding. The growing mistrust between the global north and global south is evident in a report on the world’s preparedness for the next pandemic from the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board. We also followed a panel discussion at the European Union’s Global Gateway Forum, which found that a patchwork of local regulations are the main obstacle to the EU's promises to shift health manufacturing to African countries. Meanwhile, as the tragic conflict continues in Gaza, provide an update on the work and future of UNRWA, the agency which has emerged as the main source of aid to Palestinian civilians, sheltering more than 690,000 people who have been forced from their homes. For the latest episode of the podcast, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar sits down with Jen Kates, senior vice president and director of global health and HIV policy at KFF, as well as Devex Senior Global Reporter Colum Lynch, to discuss the top stories from the past week. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

This week we attended SOCAP23 in San Francisco — a conference bringing together investors, entrepreneurs, and social impact leaders to discuss how progress can be accelerated against the world’s toughest challenges through market-based solutions — and have some key takeaways for the global development community. In addition to taking a look at the International Finance Corporation’s push to invest in the creative industries and providing an update on OSF’s reorganization, we also released an exclusive story on the European Union’s “Global Gateway” project. Critics say the initiative is focused on Europe’s own interest in securing supplies of renewable energy and critical raw materials, as well as on preventing China from laying claim to the world’s digital infrastructure. To dig into these stories and others, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar sits down with Managing Editor Anna Gawel and Senior Reporter Adva Saldinger for the latest episode of the podcast series. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

Public debt across the Middle East and North Africa — or MENA — region is soaring. While debt vulnerability is a global phenomenon, recent data shows four MENA economies — Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Jordan — are among the emerging markets most vulnerable to a debt crisis. In a special podcast episode, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar is joined by Niranjan Sarangi, a senior economic affairs officer in the shared economic prosperity cluster at the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, and Sarah Saadoun, a senior researcher working on poverty and inequality at Human Rights Watch, for an in-depth discussion on the politics of economic reform in the MENA region. Speaking on the sidelines of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund annual meetings in Marrakech, Morocco, they discuss what’s behind the current debt situation, how it’s affecting ordinary people’s lives, the impact of IFI programs on the expansion of social protection systems, and the region’s evolving climate finance needs. This episode of This Week in Global Development is sponsored by Open Society Foundations.

In the latest episode of Devex’s podcast, we reflect on the World Bank annual meetings that took place in Marrakech, Morocco last week, and what reforms need to be made if the institution is to drive meaningful transformation in global development. We discuss our exclusive story on the United States’ decision to freeze the delivery of thousands of metric tons of wheat to hungry Yemenis in order to pressure Houthi rebels to ensure the neediest get fed. We also dig into a study by AidWatch, which found that more than 22% of official development assistance declared by European Union countries last year was not real aid spent abroad, with spending going to hosting foreign students and Ukrainian refugees. We also reported that the pharmaceutical industry is unhappy with the latest pandemic treaty draft due to the inclusion of intellectual property waivers in the text. Meanwhile, access advocates say the language around equity and intellectual property remains vague and weak on enforcement. For this week’s episode, Devex President & Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar sits down with Devex Managing Editor Anna Gawel and Global Nation co-founder Jonathan Glennie to discuss the top stories from the past week. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

This week Devex reporters traveled to Marrakech, Morocco, to report on the highly anticipated World Bank-International Monetary Fund annual meetings. Ajay Banga, the World Bank’s new president, used the gathering as an opportunity to outline his priorities for the institution, which includes reforming the bank so that it can lend more efficiently and making it more impact-focused so that it will be in a better shape to request a capital increase. While Banga called for increased collaboration between multilateral development banks and vowed to increase the financial institution’s lending capacity, civil society groups have been calling for it to release free money to countries already struggling with debt repayments. For the latest episode of the podcast, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar sits down with Managing Editor Anna Gawel, who’s in Marrakech, to discuss what we learned from the annual meetings and what it means for the global development sector. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

Even though the U.S. government avoided a shutdown this week, serious concerns remain over whether lawmakers will be able to hammer out a federal budget for fiscal 2024 within the next 45 days, leaving the future funding of several development programs up in the air. This week we also had an exclusive story on the $1.5 billion Saving Lives and Livelihoods Initiative, which was temporarily halted amid an audit due to several issues, including the failure to pay workers in Nigeria for months worth of work and missing contracts and receipts. The three-year program, launched by the Mastercard Foundation and Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in 2021, is the largest public health partnership between a global philanthropic organization and an African institution and has employed more than 22,000 people. Ahead of the World Bank annual meetings in Marrakech, Morocco, next week, we reported that the institution’s president, Ajay Banga, hopes to make available up to $125 billion additional lending over the next 10 years through reforms. To dig into these stories, as well as to gain an update on PEPFAR’s potential reauthorization, tune in to the latest episode of the podcast. Devex President & EiC Raj Kumar sits down with Senior Reporter Adva Saldinger, as well as Olusoji Adeyi, the president of Resilient Health Systems and senior associate at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, to discuss the most important news this week. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

In 2018, Sally Hayden received a Facebook message from an unknown sender, a man claiming to be writing from inside a Libyan detention camp. The conditions faced by him and his fellow detainees were horrendous, and his desperate message came from a phone shared in secret among hundreds being held. “If you have time, I will tell you all the story,” he wrote. The message kicked off a sprawling investigation that led Sally to interview hundreds of refugees and migrants who found themselves victims of the EU’s newly muscular efforts to patrol the Mediterranean Sea. The result of that investigation was "My Fourth Time We Drowned," named one of the New Yorker’s best books of 2022. For more information on upcoming episodes and to sign up for our mailing list, visit the Devex Book Club here: https://pages.devex.com/devex-book-club.html

Can you imagine a world where everyone belongs? For David Sengeh, Sierra Leone's Minister of Education and Chief Innovation Officer, the answer is "yes." And by the time you finish his book, "Radical Inclusion: Seven Steps to Help You Create a More Just Workplace, Home, and World,” you'll likely agree. For more information on upcoming episodes and to sign up for our mailing list, visit the Devex Book Club here: https://pages.devex.com/devex-book-club.html

The developing world has undergone tremendous change in the last 30 years, mostly for the better. But some countries have missed the boat. Why? In "Gambling on Development: Why Some Countries Win and Other Lose," economist Stefan Dercon explores the answer to that question. For more information on upcoming episodes and to sign up for our mailing list, visit the Devex Book Club here: https://pages.devex.com/devex-book-club.html

How can America regain its position as a global leader? According to Dan Runde, author of "The American Imperative" and a a senior vice president at the Center for Strategic International Studies, the answer lies in the strategic use of soft power. For more information on upcoming episodes and to sign up for our mailing list, visit the Devex Book Club here: https://pages.devex.com/devex-book-club.html

In this week's episode, Raj talks with Fatema Sumar, executive director at Harvard University's Center for International Development, to discuss her book, "The Development Diplomat: Working Across Borders, Boardrooms, and Bureaucracies to End Poverty." For more information on upcoming episodes and to sign up for our mailing list, visit the Devex Book Club here: https://pages.devex.com/devex-book-club.html

For our first episode, Raj sits down with Gaia Vince—award-winning science journalist, author, broadcaster, and speaker—to talk about her book, https://t.devex.com/Njg1LUtCTC03NjUAAAGKE-gucggHMVy6x5B5aSC_T2MnSWV7WF5teKt0qpNJVXCUeCjqaIZo4AQcOi8dFca-2tia6SM= For more information on upcoming episodes and to sign up for our mailing list, visit the Devex Book Club here: https://pages.devex.com/devex-book-club.html

It seems like every day there’s an exciting new book coming out on global challenges like poverty and climate change. Are you fascinated by books like these, especially the ones that challenge preconceived notions and present bold new ideas? Join Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar as he brings you conversations with authors on the most important issues facing our world. For more information on upcoming episodes and to sign up for our mailing list, visit the Devex Book Club here: https://pages.devex.com/devex-book-club.html

Following the release of “White Savior,” a new HBO documentary series following https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/sep/25/white-savior-complex-documentary-tv-show-hbo-renee-bach, a white missionary who tasked herself with managing a clinic in Uganda with no medical training, we reflect on the idea of of white savior complex and its implications for the global development sector. As well as discussing how to make localization initiatives more effective, we also delve into a Devex article that examines how the https://www.devex.com/organizations/united-states-agency-for-international-development-usaid-45096 can reach its https://www.devex.com/news/how-should-usaid-fund-differently-to-hit-its-localization-targets-106261 of giving 25% of eligible funds to local partners by 2025. For this episode of the podcast, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar is joined by global strategy and development leader Nasra Ismail to dig into these stories and how they are intertwined when we consider how global development professionals can make meaningful change in lower-income countries. https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters.

Last week saw the annual gathering of heads of state, thought leaders, civil society members, development professionals, and other industry personalities in New York City for the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly. In addition to our very own Devex @ UNGA 78 summit that happened on the sidelines of the main event, we reported on the most important news affecting the drive to reach the Sustainable Development Goals as well as the United States push to reduce the U.N.’s role in the reform of the international financial system. For this special episode of the podcast, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar sits down with our resident U.N. expert Colum Lynch to discuss what we learned at UNGA 78, including the most surprising moments and the key outcomes from the summit. You can also check out our special UNGA 78 roundup newsletter: https://www.devex.com/news/unga-special-edition-gloom-shrouds-a-divided-world-106265 Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

In this special sponsored episode of This Week in Global Development, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar sits down with Natalie Samarasinghe, head of global advocacy at Open Society Foundations, and Richard Gowan, U.N. Director at Crisis Group, to discuss to what’s likely to come out of this year’s UN General Assembly, the trust deficit facing the multilateral system, and whether this global gathering is even fit for purpose anymore. They also delve into the results of Open Society Foundations’ new poll on global public opinion towards human rights and democracy. This episode of This Week in Global Development is sponsored by Open Society Foundations.

With the high-level general debate of the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly taking place next week, leaders from around the world will be gathering in New York City to talk through some of the biggest issues facing societies around the world, including how we can best meet the Sustainable Development Goals and tackle the climate crisis. For this week we have a special episode of the podcast, in which Devex Managing Editor Anna Gawel sits down with our Global Reporter Colum Lynch. From whether Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit will overshadow other global issues to increasing poverty rates around the world, they discuss the key talking points ahead of the summit. Sign up to Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

This week The END Fund announced Tsitsi Masiyiwa as the organization’s new board chair, with the aim of ushering in more African voices into discussions about increasing funding for neglected tropical diseases. During our conversation, we explored the role played by boards in influencing the work of philanthropic organizations. In the United Kingdom, we reported that up to £2.68 billion ($3.37 billion) could be diverted back to aid programs overseas after the U.K. tightened its laws on refugees, which means it can no longer claim spending on asylum seekers as official development assistance. To dig into these stories and others, I sat down with Anera President and CEO Sean Carroll, as well as Devex Managing Editor Anna Gawel, for the latest episode of the This Week in Global Development podcast. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

This week Devex Climate Correspondent William Worley sat down with Meike van Ginneken, the Netherlands’ special envoy for water, who argued that we should be prioritizing investment to help overcome issues related to water shortages in the face of climate change rather than subsidizing fossil fuels. In addition to looking back at our Devex Pro event with former senior USAID official Chuck Pope and digging into the agency’s localization targets, we also discussed an opinion piece written by former deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. Treasury Department Nancy Lee, who outlines why country-owned strategies will be key to achieving development goals. To find out more about these stories, make sure to check out the latest episode of the podcast, where I sit down with Larry Cooley, president emeritus and senior adviser at Management Systems International, to discuss the past week's top stories from the global development sector. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

For the latest episode of the podcast, I am joined by global strategy and development leader Nasra Ismail and Devex Business Editor David Ainsworth to discuss the top stories in global development, including insights into Open Society Foundations’ reorganization. This week we learned that USAID’s NextGen global health supply chain contracts, which collectively are worth $16.8 billion over 10 years, are being delayed. We discuss the possible reasoning behind this, as well as its potential impact. We are also joined by Devex Climate Correspondent Will Worley live from Stockholm, who provided an update on the World Water Week conference happening in the Swedish capital. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

This week we broke an exclusive story on the United States, the United Kingdom, and a handful of allied powers blocking an agreement on a draft declaration that advocates the need to accelerate progress on a set of critical development goals, throwing a spanner into high-level negotiations ahead of the United Nations General Assembly taking place next month. In the United Kingdom, an inquiry has been told that development assistance rules are denying “vulnerable” small island developing states, or SIDS, the help they need to combat the climate emergency as they are classified as “too rich” to receive funding. The U.K. government also received strong criticism for its aid being used to fund the training of soccer referees and coaches across China, even as spending reductions are predicted to lead to thousands of deaths this year across Africa and Yemen. However, the U.K. is not the only country planning aid cuts. Germany’s ruling coalition has proposed to reduce its aid budget by proposing a 5% cut for 2024, setting off alarm bells in development circles. For the latest episode of the podcast, I was joined by University of Oxford professor Stefan Dercon and Devex Managing Editor Anna Gawel to discuss the past week’s important stories from global development. Please note that we will not be recording an episode next week due to the Devex Summer Break. We will be back in two weeks’ time to continue bringing you the top stories from the sector. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

This week Devex reported that the U.S. Agency for International Development saw a record-breaking obligation to local contractors in 2022, up 169.8% in real terms from the previous year. While this is promising, it will be vital to ensure that initiatives are not tokenistic and that localization efforts are indeed meeting the needs of the communities they are aiming to serve rather than ticking development boxes. In the United Kingdom, the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office admitted that thousands of people “in acute humanitarian need” will die unnecessarily from hunger, poor health care, and during pregnancy because of ongoing aid cuts. At the World Bank, Ajay Banga received some backlash from employees as he announced that while he would like to maintain a flexible workplace, he wants staff in the office more than three days a week. The institution’s staff association argued that the announcement was rushed, with no guidance on how to apply this new “flexibility” and that managers were not consulted. Are localization efforts heading in the right direction? Will having staff back at the office benefit the World Bank? To answer these questions and others from the past week, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar is joined by George Ingram, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, as well as Spark MicroGrants CEO and co-founder Sasha Fisher for the latest episode of the This Week in Global Development podcast. Sign up to Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

While we usually expect the summer months to be slower than usual, it has certainly not been the case over the past week. In an exclusive Devex story, we found out that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development will most likely declare that the United Kingdom cannot legally spend its overseas development assistance on domestic refugee costs because of a new law cracking down on arrivals. In 2022 the country spent £3.7 billion — 29% of its ODA budget — domestically, exploiting OECD rules that allow the allocation of refugees’ hotel and other bills as ODA for 12 months. On the other side of the pond, the United States’ bipartisan foreign affairs budget is set to be tangled up in debates around the country’s domestic cultural wars and its competition abroad with China. To make sense of these stories, as well as UNAIDS Deputy Executive Director Angeli Achrekar’s call to keep the fight against HIV and AIDS on the political agenda, I sat down with Global Nation co-founder Jonathan Glennie and Harvard Center for International Development Executive Director Fatema Sumar for this week’s podcast episode. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

This week we’re closely following the conversations that took place at the Women Deliver conference in Kigali, Rwanda, which brought together thousands of people from diverse fields to help elevate women’s voices and accelerate the drive toward achieving gender equality. We also delve into whether hosting conferences and headquartering development organizations in the global south is an effective tool to drive the localization agenda, and we touch on the World Health Organization’s postponement of its plan to require staff to rotate to different duty stations every several years. To dig into these topics and get the latest on our coverage of Women Deliver, for episode nine of the This Week in Global Development podcast series I talk to Devex Senior Reporter Sara Jerving and Larry Cooley, president emeritus and senior adviser at Management Systems International. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

This year is seeing the proliferation of AI technology in our lives, which is having a big effect on the way many of us carry out our daily tasks in the workplace. From improving disaster response to helping address environmental challenges, the new technology has a huge potential to have a positive impact on global development. During our conversation, we discuss the risks and opportunities that lie in adopting AI. Following the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s decision to bring back staff to their offices, we also delve into the topic of remote work and the potential direction the sector may head in, especially when taking into account that humanitarian missions are often in distant places far away from an organization’s headquarters. For episode eight of the This Week in Global Development podcast series, I sat down with Anera President and CEO Sean C. Carroll, as well as Devex Managing Editor Anna Gawel to discuss the top stories from the sector from the past week. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

Last week, the World Health Organization released its long-awaited updated guidance on the prevention and management of malnutrition in children, which aims to reduce child mortality through starvation by widening access to treatment worldwide. For this episode, I was joined by Matthias Berninger, the senior vice president for public affairs and sustainability at Bayer, as well as Devex Senior Reporter Teresa Welsh to discuss the recommendations. We also dig into how Russia’s war in Ukraine is negatively affecting food supplies in low- and middle-income countries and discuss China’s decision to cut funding to the United Nations. Don’t forget to follow Food Secured, our series that explores innovative ideas for a more sustainable and resilient food and agriculture sector. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

High interest rates are threatening the gains made in financial inclusion over the past decade, with investors backing off riskier investments especially in inclusive fintech, as reported by Devex’s Shabtai Gold this week. While some regions have achieved robust progress — such as India, where nearly 80% of adults now have a bank account — others are lagging behind. Over half the population of sub-Saharan Africa, or about 530 million people, are still unbanked. Meanwhile French President Emmanuel Macron’s global financing summit, which aimed to address rising debt burdens and high interest rates, wrapped up at the end of last week with mixed outcomes, as covered by Devex Brussels Correspondent Vince Chadwick. The summit ended with a number of strong interventions from leaders in Africa and Latin America who challenged Western governments on inequitable global governance structures and called for a transformation of the financial system. This week, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar is joined by Reuben Abraham, the CEO at Artha Global, and Nasra Ismail, a policy adviser and ICAP Aspen fellow, to discuss these stories and more. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

While usually during the summer, news is expected to slow down, that was certainly not the case for the first weeks in June. As the unexpected struggle to reauthorize PEPFAR, the U.S. global AIDS initiative, continues, and we mark the beginning of a new era at the World Bank with Ajay Banga’s presidency, the start of the month has most definitely been eventful. From discussing what to expect out of Banga’s presidency to a deep dive into a two-month investigation concerning the new director general of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Jean Kaseya, we review the week’s top stories in the latest episode of This Week in Global Development. For this episode,I was joined by Devex Managing Editor Anna Gawel, as well as George Ingram, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters. https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

This week USAID released its long-awaited localization update. Despite the progress made, not least due to the success of the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, the agency is yet to come close to reaching its target of spending 25% of funding on local organizations by 2025. From the U.K. government reclaiming official development assistance via taxes to India’s renewable energy push threatening the country’s food security, the past week has been filled with controversies that have the potential to hinder the drive toward meaningful change. Tune in to the latest episode of This Week in Development to hear our take on the issues. For this episode, I was joined by Dr. Jen Kates, senior vice president and director of global health & HIV policy at KFF, as well as Devex Managing Editor Anna Gawel to discuss the most important news from the past week in the global development sector. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

French President Emmanuel Macron is hosting the Summit for a New Global Financial Pact in Paris this week, which aims to strike a new post-World War II pact between high-income nations and those most at risk from climate change and crippling debt. However, with key players not attending, including U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, U.S. President Joe Biden, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, serious doubts remain over whether the decisions made during the summit will translate into meaningful action. There are also major disagreements between French organizers and participants over reforming international institutions, including multilateral development banks. For this special episode, I talk to Devex Brussels Correspondent Vince Chadwick, who is connecting from the French capital, to get an insider perspective on the discussions happening at the summit. The conversation also touches on Vince’s interview with Peter Sands, the head of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, who argues that innovative financial instruments and private sector mobilization should not be a “proxy” for giving money to help the world’s poorest. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

Seven years ago, the United Nations' World Humanitarian Summit proposed the "humanitarian-development nexus" to improve collaboration between the two ends of the aid sector. Although it was initially a good idea to enhance efficiency and reduce costs, this framework has struggled to deliver amidst the increasing number of humanitarian disasters and prolonged crises. Recently, Devex's Teresa Welsh discussed the cracks surfacing in the "humanitarian-development nexus." This week, another global development topic made headlines when USAID Administrator Samantha Power informed the U.S. Congress that the agency would find it difficult to achieve its localization targets, as reported by Adva Saldinger on Devex. To make sense of these and other significant news stories of the week, tune in to This Week in Global Development. This weekly podcast analyzes the major headlines in global development and invites top experts to help us understand them. In this week's episode, I was joined by Nasra Ismail, policy adviser and ICAP Aspen fellow, and Anna Gawel, Devex managing editor. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

The World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s Spring Meetings have come to an end this weekend. A great sense of change was anticipated for this year’s event, as Devex wrote last week. But what do we make of the talks now that they are over? That’s the question we asked our guests in the first episode of “This Week in Global Development,” a weekly podcast where we break down the big headlines in global development and bring in top experts to help us do it. For this episode, I was joined by Rachel Kyte, the dean at The Fletcher School at Tufts University, and Jeremy Hillman, senior vice president of external engagement at the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters here: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters

Davos 2023 has wrapped, and Devex was there to experience it all. In this installment of Davos Dispatch, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar compared notes with reporter Vince Chadwick on what the conference means for development, the private sector and how the two can, and must, work together. And despite their differing Davos experiences—Raj moderated a number of WEF panels while Vince joined a frozen press scrum waiting in vain for Greta Thunberg—they both agree that the conference is quite unlike anything else.

In the final episode of COPcast, chef, food advocate and filmmaker Oliver English sits down with Kate Warren to discuss how regenerative agriculture and support for small scale farmers can help transform the global food system.

Rémy Rioux is chief executive officer of the French Development Agency, or AFD. But before that, in 2015, he worked as chief negotiator on the finance track of the landmark Paris Agreement on climate. Since then the United Nations Conference of the Parties has grown into a behemoth, with COP 27 in Egypt attracting 40,000 people. Devex sat down with Rioux on the sidelines of COP 27 to hear his thoughts on how the summit has changed since 2015 — and if it’s become an opportunity for greenwashing. In this wide-ranging interview, Rioux also discussed the prospects of the AFD providing loss and damage financing and supporting nuclear energy programs through its aid program, and whether human rights in Egypt were helped or hindered by the summit.

At the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, the calls for the restructuring of multilateral development banks are echoing through the halls, with the hopes that with reforms, finance will flow more readily to lower-income countries to allow them to green their economies and help their populations adapt to the changing world. In the 12th episode of the COPcast, Devex sat down with Phyllis Cuttino, the new president and CEO of the Climate Reality Project, who emphasized one reform in particular: A switch up in leadership at the World Bank. "Davis Malpass ... has a past where he has denied climate science and I think that makes him unsuitable to lead the World Bank at this time," she said, adding that the bank also needs to commit to only financing fossil fuel projects in the "most extraordinary of circumstances."

The private sector has a key role to play in investing in climate change adaptation – and yet, currently, only 1.6% of all adaptation funding comes from private investment. Matthias Berninger is the Head of Sustainability and Public Affairs at Bayer, but he’s seen many sides of the food and agriculture space over the course of his career: in the public sector, he was a vice minister in Germany’s Green Party; and in the private sector, he previously worked on health and nutrition strategy at Mars. In this episode of COPcast, Berninger tells Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar what three critical words the 5,000-word Glasgow Declaration left out, plus three things every company should be doing in order to achieve net zero by 2050.

In the twelfth episode of COPcast, Devex sat down with Solomon Quaynor, vice-president for private sector, infrastructure and industrialization at the African Development Bank to discuss the continent’s climate financing needs.

Extreme weather devastated Sierra Leone’s capital city of Freetown in 2017 when torrential rains led to landslides that killed over 1,000 people. Now the city’s population is grappling with temperature increases and population swells due to people migrating from rural areas as erratic rainfall makes subsistence farming less sustainable. Freetown Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr is working to help her city adapt in areas such as building heat-resistant market shelters and building a cable car to cut down on emissions and pollution. She sat down with Devex on the sidelines of the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference in Sharm-el- Sheikh, Egypt, to talk about the need for cities to have greater ownership on climate action. Aki-Sawyerr is ​​vice chair of C40 Cities, an organization of 96 cities focused on reducing emissions and helping their populations adapt to climate change.

This year world leaders have gathered at the 27th United Nations Climate Change Summit, or COP 27, as people around the world grapple with a food security crisis. An estimated 828 million people are chronically food insecure, and 345 million people are at crisis levels or worse. They are in need of food assistance as conflict, climate shocks, and the threat of global recession drive hunger levels even higher. At COP 27, CGIAR co-hosted the first Food and Agriculture Pavilion aimed at putting the transformation of agrifood systems at the heart of the COP agenda. In this episode of COPcast, Devex’s Associate Editor Rumbi Chakamba sat down with Claudia Sadoff, executive director of the coalition, to discuss climate-smart solutions to the food crisis.