Public development banks are in a unique and powerful position to play a key role in the post Covid-19 recovery. 

Faced with the crisis of the century, the G20 has failed to meet the demands of the moment. As the Saudi Arabian presidency comes to a close, Eurodad policy experts take a critical look at what has been delivered.

Public Development Banks are in a unique and powerful position to play a key role in the post Covid-19 recovery. Explore the core features such organisations should embody.

It is vital that we seize the opportunity afforded by the Finance in Common Summit to reclaim public development banks for the public good.

Originally published on IDN-InDepthNews

Last week was a crucial week for the citizens of developing countries, who are being hit hard by the Coronavirus crisis. They are facing increasing poverty, growing inequality and uncertain futures – and were looking to the world's leaders for decisive action. Yet despite a week of stirring rhetoric from G20, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB) leaders, who claim they are determined to tackle the crisis, the results are deeply disappointing. What is clear is that world leaders and the Bretton Woods institutions need to take much more ambitious steps to deliver in the public interest. 

The Covid-19 pandemic has triggered health, economic and social crises of unprecedented proportions that have the potential to seriously undermine the (already slow) progress made by developing countries towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

This weekend, G20 Finance Ministers passed up the chance to scale up debt relief to developing countries, demonstrating a galling lack of urgency in the face of the debt crisis engulfing a pandemic-stricken globe. Worse still, their approach risks making a bad situation worse.

An analysis of the European Commission's proposals on EFSD and EFSD+ in the revised NDICI and Next Generation EU.

Piling on more debt on to the shoulders of developing countries will not help them recover from the Covid-19 crisis, write Isabelle Brachet and Maria Jose Romero.

Before Covid-19 most discussions on development finance were focused on using public money and institutions to ‘leverage’ private finance. The pandemic has, however, exposed the consequences of decades of austerity policies and privatisation strategies.