Devex Invested: A new initiative pushes hundreds of financial reforms

Last week, the Integrated National Financing Frameworks Facility — a funding tool to help countries plan, implement, regulate, and mobilize financing for their national development strategies — was launched via a partnership of the United Nations Development Programme, the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, OECD, the European Union, and the Italian and Swedish governments.

• So-called integrated national financing frameworks are currently helping countries push more than 250 financing reforms. They’ve helped the government of Uzbekistan issue an SDG bond, Cape Verde launch a “blue economy” sustainable financing platform, and the Mongolian Stock Exchange publish environmental, social, and governance reporting guidance.

• “Finance for development is both about the achievement of the SDGs, the 2030 Agenda, but it is also about acute crisis management responses right now,” UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner tells Adva.

• Adva also recently interviewed Rania al-Mashat, Egypt’s minister of international cooperation, about her country’s strategies to effectively drive its development dollars. Egypt mapped its aid funding to the SDGs — with all the details available on the ministry’s website — in an effort to “improve accountability and identify funding gaps.”

• Egypt has also created multistakeholder platforms to convene partners around issues such as digitalization, energy, and food security, and the country is using clear government policies to inform new strategies with its international donor partners. Al-Mashat says her ministry is also sharing some of the lessons Egypt has learned with other countries in Africa and elsewhere, including around transitioning to clean energy.

UNDP chief: Amid geopolitical paralysis, financing is acute challenge

Egypt: Lessons on locally led development finance

DevExplains: Bonds

Adva’s the star of the new bond movie … by which we mean this short video explaining how bonds are increasingly used in development finance to fund specific projects around the world. To find out more about innovative financing methods, and when they should or should not be used, check out the full video.

Watch: How do bonds work for development?

Back to the future

Countries that skipped over the wired phase of internet connectivity and went straight to mobile are realizing they missed out on vital pieces of broadband infrastructure. To improve access and bandwidth, USAID has launched a new blended finance program that will provide $3.45 million in grants, with the goal of mobilizing nearly 10 times that amount in private capital, Catherine Cheney reports.

However, it will cost billions of dollars to build fixed-line connections across developing economies and emerging markets — meaning this latest project will have to just be a start.

Read: USAID initiative is mobilizing the private sector to fund connectivity

+ Check out all of our coverage of USAID, including funding insights and business forecasts. Devex Pro subscribers can access all exclusive content. Not gone Pro yet? Sign up and start your 15-day free-trial.

Ripple effect

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the retaliatory sanctions against Moscow are causing economic chaos all over the world. One of the regions facing serious impacts is sub-Saharan Africa, according to a new assessment by IMF.

Growth is expected to slow to 3.8% this year, down from 4.5% in 2021. Worse still, policymakers have little fiscal space to operate after two years of pandemic-related shocks, our colleague Rumbi Chakamba reports. This means creating jobs, fighting climate change, and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals are all going to get a lot more complicated.

IMF: War in Ukraine threatens Africa’s economic outlook

Scale up

In an op-ed for Devex, Larrea details five things that could happen if blended finance were to scale. Notably, she says there would be more transparency around foreign aid, and the process would create a larger pathway for low-income countries to access capital markets.

Opinion: 5 things that could happen if blended finance scaled

Investors beware

Allianz, the insurance giant, has become the 10th major player in its industry to adopt oil and gas restrictions. The company warned last week about the “serious consequences of climate change” and pledged to “contribute to an orderly decarbonization of the economy.”

It’s a big move and one that could be a game changer, wrote The Sunrise Project’s Peter Bosshard in a Twitter thread that’s worth a read.

What we’re reading

Limiting fertilizer exports is just one of the ways that Beijing is adding to global challenges. [Marketplace]

The Biden administration kills off “Build Back Better” (again) as it rebrands its signature international development plan. [Prospect]

+ What we’re listening to: The debt crisis in emerging markets is the “train wreck” that’s going to make everything worse. [Bloomberg Stephanomics]