While G7 leaders argue that they "aim for a step change" in their approach to infrastructure financing, a market-led approach is still at the heart of the G7’s plan to "build back better for the world. In the following blog, María José Romero, Farwa Sial and Flora Sonkin analyse the proposals, the risks and an alternative way of thinking about infrastructure.

The Summit on the Financing of African Economies convened by the French President, Emmanuel Macron last week was mostly a rhetorical exercise in supporting Africa’s post-pandemic recovery and resilience-building.

We are at a crucial juncture. Global discussions on how to respond to low- and middle-income countries’ increasing debt burdens could lead us to a prolonged debt crisis in the global south, especially in Africa, or to game-changing debt architecture reform. The question is: What path will high-income countries choose?

• The publication of the World Banks’ 2021 Doing Business Report was stopped in August 2020 following a scandal that uncovered data manipulation and altered scores in four countries.
• As a result of these irregularities, Saudi Arabia was named the top improving economy of 2020 around the time of the “Davos in the Desert” summit and a year after the Khashoggi murder.
• The World Bank has launched another review of the Doing Business methodology and is finally seeking feedback from CSOs, but for a meaningful and participatory consultation it must extend the deadline for feedback and organise a follow-up discussion.

The Covid-19 crisis threatens to erode two-decades' of progress on poverty reduction in Bangladesh. This difficult situation highlights the need for a more ambitious response to the crisis.

In this second part of our blog series on Covid-19 from a feminist perspective, we look at what needs to be considered when designing policy responses to the Covid-19 socio-economic crisis.

Read part one

In this first part of our blog series on Covid-19 from a feminist perspective, we look at how the pandemic is impacting women and girls and deepening gender divides.

Read part two

As countries face the difficult challenge of recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic, civil society is calling on the IMF to finally close the gap between its rhetoric and practice by no longer recommending austerity measures in long-term loan programmes.

The use of private sector instruments (PSI) has raised many questions regarding its ability to reach those most in need. Through this blog, we provide an overview of the findings of a new Eurodad report analysing the latest PSI data. 

Download the full report

While Covid-19 has had a limited impact on the health of Grenada's population, the economic impact of the virus has been devastating.