The remaining months of 2021 are crucial for the future of our humanity. The multiple and interrelated crises that we face call for an even greater level of unprecedented and truly multilateral action.

As long as the World Bank's International Development Association can be an important source of recovery funds for the poorest economies, those resources must be used effectively. This will require closing the IDA's Private Sector Window and instead providing resources directly to governments.

This blog was originally published by Project Syndicate.

In the space of a few months, Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) - supplementary reserve assets created by the International Monetary Fund - have gone from being a topic for IMF geeks to the talk of the town. There are two main issues at stake.

This is the first blog in a series of blogs on SDRs.

During the past year, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, in partnership with the US asset management firm PIMCO, has advocated for the establishment of a Liquidity and Sustainability Facility (LSF). The LSF has been presented as a mechanism to support countries in Africa in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. But which countries and investors really stand to benefit? 

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