The changing face of global development finance
Source: Halifax Initiative
In 2007 Brazil’s Development Bank issued loans worth more than double the entire World Bank portfolio. More than half of the increase in aid since 2002 comes from debt relief, rather than new funding commitments. What’s more, from 1995-2005, Africa saw no net increase in its development aid despite a 35% increase in commitments to global aid over that period. In 2007, China financed more infrastructure projects in Africa than all multilateral and bilateral donors combined. The Gates Foundation provides more funding for neglected developing country diseases than all of the Group of Seven. These were some of the facts that emerged at an HI conference on “The Changing Face of Global Development Finance - Impacts and implications for aid, development, the South and the Bretton Woods Institutions.â€
Key note speakers Amar Bhattacharya and Yao Graham brilliantly mapped the changing landscape in developing countries and discussed how these states are financing their development, drawing particular attention to the situation in Africa and the growing regional and in-country disparities. Fabrina Furtado raised concerns about the new “Bank of the South†in Latin America which, while shifting power to developing countries, looks set to replicate past mistakes by funding large-scale regional infrastructure projects in the Amazon. Firoze Manji dispelled the western media myths about a new “yellow peril†(in the form of China) taking over Africa. Charles Mutasa, Lydia Duran and Rasheed Draman spoke about many of the shortfalls in the aid effectiveness agenda. And Alejandro Bendaña reminded us of the need to move beyond the “aid box†and to explore new models of development.
Discussions from the meeting will form the basis of a submission to the Financing for Development review that concludes in November in Doha.
Conference backgrounder, glossary of terms, powerpoint presentations and recorded speeches can be found here