Financial actors from developing countries are playing with other OECD financial giants as equals through their Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs). SWFs could become major actors of development finance if they chose to allocate 10 per cent of their portfolio to emerging and developing economies over...

A large, untapped reservoir of potential partnerships between private financial institutions (banks, asset managers, private equity firms, etc.) and aid donors remains to be fully exploited. Banks, private equity and asset management firms are important parts of a broad set of private actors in...

This paper measures and compares fragmentation in aid sectors. Past studies focused on aggregate country data but a sector analysis provides a better picture of fragmentation. We start by counting the number of aid projects in the developing world and find that, in 2007, more than 90 000...

This paper presents stylised facts about development aid and capital flows to developing countries. It compares their volumes and volatilities and finds that foreign aid is not the major source of finance for these countries any more, though not for all regions. The expansion of private flows...

While natural resource revenues ought to enable development, past experiences with the 'Paradox of Plenty' have shown that mineral and oil wealth often represents a curse rather than a blessing, inducing slower growth and higher levels of poverty. Many resource rich countries have high poverty...