This paper makes new estimates of the cost of ending poverty and the global distribution of both the cost and poverty itself. First, the paper discusses definitions of 'ending' poverty, arguing that there is an overemphasis (e.g. SDG 1) on the extreme poverty line which is insufficient for...

The mixed record on the 2015 Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets and the focus on global public goods in post-MDG debates questions the future of traditional development co-operation (official development assistance, ODA). Meanwhile, international financial crisis and fiscal retrenchment...

The financial sector in rural areas, where most of the poor people in sub-Saharan Africa are found, has transformed massively in recent times, notably through the increased penetration of several types of rural financial intermediaries in addition to rural and community banks and microfinance...

Japan has an impressive history when it comes to aid, industrial policy, and infrastructure development, both as a country that saw meteoric development of its own, and as a country that has been one of the world's largest donors for decades. Looking towards an uncertain future in which...

In this paper we update previous work that categorizes foreign aid projects in terms of their likely impact on the natural environment. We then document trends in the global distribution of environmental aid over time and show that environmental aid has increasingly focussed on global...

Six Southeast Asian countries (Cambodia, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Thailand) defied Gunnar Myrdal's pessimistic prognosis in his 1968 volume, Asian Drama, regarding their prospects for development. In the past half-century, these countries raised...

This paper looks at the spillover effects of grants under the Youth Opportunities Programme (YOP) on human capital investments in conflict-affected Northern Uganda. The YOP grant was primarily aimed at providing start-up money to groups of underemployed young people, and in practice worked...

The paper considers the experience of the European Investment Bank and addresses policy lessons for developing countries as they seek finance for development. The paper argues that the key lesson for developing countries is that the traditional role of a development bank in closing market gaps...

Botswana has serious environmental problems which, if not addressed, will undermine the attainment of sustainable economic development. This study attempts to determine what aid flows have actually been doing with regard to the environment in Botswana. The results show that although both the...

We develop the climate finance-gender equity framework in this paper and use the 'contextual-procedural-distributive' equity as a lens of analysis to examine how climate finance helps challenge, and reinforce, gender inequities in the mitigation, adaptation and disaster management strategies....