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As Western aid budgets come under sustained pressure, the African Development Bank is accelerating its search for new partners — and new money. Meetings last week in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, between AfDB and the Arab Coordination Group were the first time the bloc of Arab development finance institutions had gathered at the bank’s headquarters. It signaled a deliberate effort to reposition Arab capital as a more central pillar of Africa’s development financing, my colleague Ayenat Mersie reports.
The talks, which stopped short of announcing fresh headline commitments, instead focused on how the two sides can move from ad hoc cooperation to deeper coordination, cofinancing, and joint programming across energy, food security, trade, and private sector development.
“Let this meeting in Abidjan be remembered as a turning point when Africa and the Arab world choose to deepen an already strong partnership, not out of nostalgia for the past, but out of responsibility for the future,” said AfDB President Sidi Ould Tah during his opening remarks.
The moment carries particular weight for Tah, who took office in September on a mandate to broaden the bank’s funding base as traditional donors retreat. Backed by strong ties to Gulf institutions and fresh off a record $11 billion replenishment of the African Development Fund, AfDB’s confessional financing arm — buoyed in part by major Arab pledges — Tah is pitching AfDB as a bridge between Africa and the Arab world.
Whether that vision translates into significantly scaled capital flows will be closely watched, as development banks grapple with how to plug widening financing gaps in a more fragmented and geopolitically contested aid landscape.
Read: AfDB and Arab financiers move toward closer cooperation
See also: African Development Bank’s concessional lending arm raises record $11B
Davos deals
This year’s World Economic Forum is unfolding against rising geopolitical fragmentation and an accelerating shift toward private capital, Gulf finance, and “minilateral” deals to plug widening development gaps. As governments pull back and multilateralism frays, development leaders are arriving in Davos, Switzerland, with a sharper investment pitch — courting sovereign wealth funds, development banks, and corporates inside hotel lobbies and invitation-only houses that increasingly function as the real marketplace of global development finance.
“It’s quite a useful gathering for people who are trying to get deals, to shape narratives, to talk about global public goods, and talk about global issues,” Rachel Glennerster, president of the Center for Global Development, tells my colleague Elissa Miolene.
That dynamic makes this year’s forum a stress test for whether development can still command capital in a world driven by power, profit, and political bargaining. With billionaire wealth surging, public aid shrinking, and institutions under strain, the questions are pragmatic and uncomfortable: Who is actually financing development now? Under what terms? And whose priorities are shaping the deals being struck? As AfDB, Gulf financiers, philanthropies, and corporates jostle for influence in Davos, the week will offer early signals of what the post-aid development economy may look like — and who gets to define it.
Elissa is on the ground in Davos to bring you up-to-date reporting. If you’re signed up to our daily Newswire, keep an eye on your inbox for a special newsletter from her tomorrow. If you aren’t, sign up for Newswire here.
Read: Davos tests the limits in a world of power, profit, and inequality
The year of the MDB
After a year that saw USAID dismantled even as the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, or DFC, was supercharged, the direction of travel for global development finance is becoming unmistakable: away from grants and toward investment, Devex President and Editor-in Chief Raj Kumar writes.
As official development assistance continues to fall — potentially back to pre-SDG levels — power is shifting to development finance institutions, multilateral development banks, private capital, and philanthropy, which are all operating in a far more transactional geopolitical environment. DFIs such as DFC now have mandates and balance sheets large enough to rival China’s Belt and Road initiative, while MDBs are scaling up platform-style investments in energy, infrastructure, agriculture, and digital systems designed to crowd in private capital. The big question for investors and policymakers alike is whether this long-promised shift from “billions to trillions” can finally materialize — and whether an investment-led model can deliver economic transformation at scale without abandoning the poorest and most fragile countries as aid continues to retreat.
Read: The old aid model is dead. Now comes the fight over what replaces it
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AIIB’s new era
A decade after its launch as a lean, green alternative in the crowded world of multilateral development banks, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank enters a new chapter. Founding President Jin Liqun, who shepherded the Beijing-based lender from its inaugural boardroom in 2016 to a globally recognized institution with 111 approved members and a AAA credit rating, stepped aside last week. His successor is Zou Jiayi, former deputy minister of finance in the Chinese government.
The leadership change comes as AIIB updated its grievance rules for project-level issues, but some NGOs are still concerned about what this power shift could mean for AIIB’s future political leanings now that it’s run by a former Chinese government official.
“With leadership now passing to a former Deputy Minister of Finance, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is moving closer to the centre of power in Beijing,” says Nora Sausmikat, an expert and senior campaigner on multilateral financial institutions at German nonprofit Urgewald.
Related: AIIB updates grievance rules, winning cautious civil society optimism
And ICYMI: AIIB turns 10 — is there trouble ahead for the China-backed bank? (Pro)
Turning heads toward taxation
Amid the focus on debt, private capital, and shrinking donor flows, one crucial piece of the post-aid puzzle has been largely overlooked: taxation, writes Giulia Mascagni, the executive director of the International Centre for Taxation and Development, in an opinion piece for Devex. With aid down as much as 26% in just two years and debt costs soaring, the future of development now hinges on whether lower-income countries can dramatically scale up domestic public revenue — and whether donors are willing to back that shift in earnest.
Taxation is not just another financing tool, but the only credible exit strategy from aid, argues Mascagni. Most development is already funded domestically, and evidence shows there is real, near-term potential to raise more revenue — if governments tax wealth and large firms more effectively, fix broken incentives, and invest in the fundamentals of tax administration.
The new U.N. Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation will take shape in 2026. Done right, tax reform can strengthen institutions, unlock growth, and rebuild trust between states and citizens. Done wrong, it risks social unrest and stalled reform, she writes. The post-aid era will be decided not by grand pledges, but by whether countries — and their partners — are willing to tax smarter, and fairer.
Opinion: Taxing smarter is the key to thriving in an era of declining aid
See also: The ‘tax era’ of development takes shape amid shrinking aid
Pioneering pathways
Your next job?
Head of Project Economics
Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank
Beijing, China
Applications have officially opened for the World Bank Group’s new Pioneers internship program, a revamped entry-level initiative that will place more than 100 interns across the institution’s five arms and in over 20 locations. The launch comes as the bank faces growing scrutiny over how it recruits and renews talent, particularly as development work becomes more technical and politically complex.
At a Devex Career event last week, World Bank recruiters outlined how the program is intended to function as an entry point — and, for some, a pathway into longer-term roles — with placements ranging from four weeks to six months. Recruiters also offered a candid look at how applications are screened — and where candidates often go wrong. Doing basic homework on the World Bank’s work, including its project cycle and public reporting, can make the difference between two similar candidates, recruiters noted, underscoring how competitive even “entry-level” pathways into the institution have become.
Read: What would-be interns need to know about the World Bank’s new program (Career)
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What we’re reading
How Wall Street turned its back on climate change. [The New York Times]
Beijing pours cash into Belt and Road financing in global resources grab. [Financial Times]
The big question at Davos: “How far is too far for Trump?” [Bloomberg]
About the author
Jesse Chase-Lubitz
Jesse Chase-Lubitz covers climate change and multilateral development banks for Devex. She previously worked at Nature Magazine, where she received a Pulitzer grant for an investigation into land reclamation. She has written for outlets such as Al Jazeera, Bloomberg, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, and The Japan Times, among others. Jesse holds a master’s degree in Environmental Policy and Regulation from the London School of Economics.
