Presented by Eleanor Crook Foundation
One thing we’ve learned in the past few weeks is that the World Bank is serious about making some big changes to how it operates. If you want a concrete example look no further than the bank’s guarantee platform launched last year.
Guarantees are at “the vanguard of the change that’s happening systematically across the World Bank Group,” Junaid Ahmad, vice president of operations at the bank’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, tells Adva.
The platform has merged the guarantee instruments from across the World Bank Group into one entity, under MIGA, creating a one-stop shop that makes it easier for investors and countries to find the right products to de-risk their investments. In its first year, the platform backed $12.3 billion worth of guarantees across 77 projects, making progress toward a target of $20 billion in guarantees annually by 2030 set by World Bank President Ajay Banga.
“There is an inflection point that is happening inside the World Bank Group, and that inflection point is a recognition that we need to move from being solely or primarily a lending bank to becoming a leveraging bank,” Ahmad tells Adva.
For MIGA and the guarantee platform, that means better coordination, streamlining safeguards, the ability to share risk across balance sheets, and leaning into innovation to try and achieve the scale that leadership has requested. Ahmad describes the approach as going “wholesale” rather than thinking about one guarantee at a time.
Some models it has tried that are worth watching:
• Using a guarantee to help the State Bank of India convert a World Bank loan to a cheaper commercial loan — it has led to the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development now creating a new loan product with a built-in off-ramp to push borrowers to look for commercial loans over time.
• MIGA issuing its first portfolio guarantee to protect CrossBoundary Energy’s portfolio of energy projects in Africa from currency risk.
• Supporting a debt-for-development swap in Côte d’Ivoire with a guarantee, enabling the government to use debt payment savings to invest in education.
Read: World Bank’s guarantee platform is a pilot for broader shifts underway
For years, Africa’s debt problem has been discussed in the language of ratios and repayment schedules. But behind every percentage point lies a life affected — a classroom unfunded, a clinic unfinished, a mother lost.
The African Center for Economic Transformation wants to make that connection impossible to ignore. In a new report, the think tank translates the billions spent servicing debt into tangible outcomes: clean water, education, and survival. If Egypt capped debt servicing at just 5% of revenue, for instance, maternal mortality could be eliminated. Ethiopia could send 330,000 children back to school. Kenya could extend clean water to nearly 700,000 people.
“People don't actually know what it is costing ordinary Africans for us to … make the debt repayments we are making,” ACET CEO Mavis Owusu-Gyamfi tells our colleague Anna Gawel, noting that when we “start putting these into lives affected, it becomes tangible.”
The numbers underscore the deep inequities baked into the global financial system. African governments are paying far higher interest rates than their European counterparts — what Owusu-Gyamfi calls a penalty for being on the African continent. And as the IMF has noted, the money flowing out of Africa to service debt now exceeds the aid flowing in.
Owusu-Gyamfi isn’t just calling for compassion — she’s calling for reform. That means more Special Drawing Rights from the IMF, a rethink of tax havens and global wealth taxation, and stronger accountability from African governments themselves. “Fixing the debt issue makes policy sense,” she says. “It’s not about charity.”
Read: African Center for Economic Transformation tries to humanize debt
ICYMI: G20 recommits to debt relief, but critics say it’s far from enough
Countries facing both conflict and climate vulnerability are struggling to attract the funding they urgently need. Less than 10% of global climate finance reaches fragile states, and private capital covers just 3% of adaptation needs — the type of financing most critical for countries on the front lines of climate shocks. Experts say this gap undermines both climate action and global security, as finance continues to flow to more stable, “bankable” markets.
“The very conditions that make investment urgent also make investors nervous,” says Martin Raiser, senior representative for European economic cooperation at the World Bank, “Traditional finance likes stability, data, and predictability.”
Experts at last week’s Berlin Climate and Security Conference stressed that innovative financial tools, risk-sharing mechanisms, and multilevel partnerships are essential to make adaptation finance both effective and resilient. As the United Nations’ COP30 climate conference approaches, negotiators are expected to push for stronger adaptation commitments — but the hardest-to-reach populations may still be left behind without targeted solutions.
Read: The world’s most fragile states get less than 10% of climate finance
While climate action faces political headwinds, long-term investors — especially pension funds and insurers — are quietly doubling down on impact investing. At the Global Impact Investing Network Forum in Berlin this month, managers from funds including Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and the Netherlands’ PGGM and MN described how climate and nature are being integrated into their core investment strategies. Pension funds now make up 35% of the global impact investing market, which has swelled to $1.57 trillion — growing roughly 21% per year.
The shift isn’t just ideological. Pensioners increasingly want their savings to be sustainable, while volatile weather and climate risk modeling have made ignoring climate change a fiduciary liability. Investment firms are toning down their climate rhetoric, shifting their strategies to talk about resilience rather than ESG — or environmental, social, and governance spending — according to an attendee who spoke to Devex on condition of anonymity.
Read: Pension funds and investors quietly back climate investing
Related opinion: Pension funds are underused in financing Africa’s infrastructure
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On the sidelines of the World Bank-IMF annual meetings earlier this month, Devex reporters and editors interviewed global development’s biggest movers and shakers. Here’s a sampling of what we spoke about:
• Private investors turn to MDBs and DFIs when deals need de-risking or local expertise, according to J.P. Morgan’s Faheen Allibhoy. MDBs can act as anchor investors, provide guarantees, and offer reputational credibility — but these benefits come with compliance hurdles and slower, bespoke deal processes.
Read: How private investors want to engage with development finance (Pro)
• As official development assistance shrinks, taxes are emerging as the backbone of development finance. Low-income countries typically collect 15% of their GDP in taxes — far below the 40% average in wealthier nations — limiting their ability to fund public services. Experts at Devex Impact House on the sidelines of the World Bank-IMF meetings highlighted that boosting domestic resource mobilization requires not just higher rates, but smarter tax policy.
Read: The ‘tax era’ of development takes shape amid shrinking aid
• Brian Kagoro of the Open Society Foundations didn’t mince words about the global financial system, calling it “vicious,” “odious,” and “unfair” — particularly for African nations trapped in debt cycles that stifle investment and industrialization. Yet, he remains cautiously hopeful, saying that a “sense of urgency has almost overtaken the sense of despondency” of a year ago as countries rally to defend multilateralism.
Read: Why the ‘vicious cycle’ of debt needs to be stopped (Pro)
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Should philanthropic organizations partner with social movements? [Devex Pro]
Key findings from a 2025 Pacific aid report. [Lowy Institute]
A new model of emerging market investing. [Financial Times]