COP27 only delivered one part of the climate finance puzzle, namely a Loss and Damage Fund. Developed countries need to step up their efforts to repay the climate debt so all countries are able to pursue sustainable development.

The UN Climate Conference (COP27) is currently taking place in Egypt. Tackling climate change requires a global effort; so it is crucial that the quality and quantity of international climate finance for countries in the global south is strengthened. Two key markers of success at COP27 are whether countries agree to a Loss and Damage Finance Facility, and whether the post-2025 climate finance goal will cover loss and damage.

The worsening debt crisis in developing countries calls for immediate debt cancellation and structural reforms, but the G20 is not willing to deliver. A truly multilateral and systemic response, that includes borrowing countries in the decision-making, is urgently needed.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee is a group of donor countries that monitors development finance flows. Over the past 20 years it has periodically amended the rules for calculating official development assistance — most recently as part of the ODA modernisation process.

This blog was originally posted on the Global Partnership website here.

Ahead of the UN climate conference (COP27) - the first to take place in Africa for five years - European Union (EU) Foreign Ministers have published their 2022 Climate Diplomacy priorities. These priorities help us understand the level of EU ambition, and the direction the bloc will take in various negotiating spheres throughout the year.

On 1 January a new development branch of the European Investment Bank (EIB) went into operation. This was approved by the bank’s Board of Directors in September 2021, following relatively limited conversations on how to improve the European architecture for development. This branch aims to reorganise the EIB’s activities outside the European Union and enhance engagement with external partners through the provision of targeted strategies and services. 

As many countries welcomed in the new year they were also hit by Omicron, yet another even more infectious variant of the Coronavirus. The world is once again faced with the common challenge of dealing with a new turn in the pandemic.

Intended by the IMF as a means to redistribute rich countries’ unused Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), the current design of the Resilience and Sustainability Trust indicates that it is far from a magic bullet. Instead, it may reproduce the inequalities of the current system and award the IMF additional powers outside of its mandate.

On Thursday, the IMF published a blog on the problems facing the implementation of the G20 Common Framework (CF). This signals a victory for civil society campaigners – but is ultimately too little too late.