Welcome back.
Our newsroom was on a companywide break last week. And if you, like us, are still getting back into the swing of things, don’t miss our look at where the main multilateral development banks stand after the first half-year of the Trump administration.
It seems everyone from the World Bank to the Asian Development Bank got the memo: talk less about climate change. But as my colleagues Adva Saldinger and Jesse Chase-Lubitz write, that does not necessarily mean do less.
“You’re crazy to build a road or a rail that isn’t resistant to drought,” Kevin Gallagher, director of the Global Development Policy Center at Boston University, told them. “But you don’t necessarily need to cloak it in that [language] anymore … so on some level, it’s a test on the extent to which the [World] Bank and the [International Monetary Fund] can just mainstream this into their operations without having to tag and label it as something separate.”
And the Asian Development Bank, for its part, seemed to shy away from using the moniker “Asia and the Pacific’s climate bank” at its annual meeting in May.
But Jörn Brömmelhörster, a former principal climate change specialist at ADB who retired in 2017, said the bank ought to be upfront about labeling its climate programming — no matter who is president in the U.S. “One U.S. election shouldn’t rewrite joint international commitments or the ADB’s own strategies,” he said. “Trump may be gone by 2030, but the climate crisis won’t be.”
Read the deep dive: Great expectations for multilateral development banks
Speaking of the IMF
The deadline for the Trump administration’s review of U.S. membership in international intergovernmental organizations is looming, and Martin Mühleisen from the Atlantic Council has this interesting read on what could be around the corner for the IMF.
Gita Gopinath’s replacement as first deputy managing director may well be a Trump-approved pick, but Mühleisen argues that Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva could simply restructure to give that newcomer minor portfolios.
“Some sacrifices might be required to satisfy multilateral hawks in the US administration, such as terminating the Resilience and Sustainability Trust,” according to Mühleisen, who calls the RST “a resource-intensive lending program with little impact.”
But, the main game is elsewhere, Mühleisen argues. Namely, whether liberal-minded shareholders such as France — which backed Georgieva’s reorientation of the fund toward low-income and climate work — can work with moderate forces in the Trump administration on “tighter surveillance and innovative policy proposals in the IMF’s core areas.”
Meanwhile, the European Council on Foreign Relations has this look at what Trump’s “America First” agenda means for Europe.
“Trump’s vision sees areas such as climate, global health, rules-based trade, human rights, and much of global development as antithetical to US interests,” write Célia Belin, head of ECFR’s Paris office, and Anthony Dworkin, senior policy fellow at ECFR. “But for Europe, these goals are an essential part of tackling global challenges that directly matter to Europe’s prosperity and security. Especially now, Europeans need to expand efforts to forge wider and more inclusive coalitions of countries that can provide platforms for cooperation in these areas.”
The European Commission’s recent 2028-2034 budget proposal is an effort in that direction, though expect the final amount to be whittled down by EU states during negotiations in the next two years.
ICYMI: EU seeks major boost to development in budget amid ‘Europe First’ shift
Related: How Europe is planning for life after USAID (Pro)
An ill trade wind
For 32 sub-Saharan African nations, much hangs on another issue: whether the U.S.’s African Growth and Opportunity Act from the year 2000 will be renewed. AGOA grants those countries duty-free access to American markets for textiles, cocoa, and cars.
The scheme created 300,000 direct jobs, analyst Imran Khalid writes in an opinion piece for Devex, yet the Trump administration’s tariffs now threaten a significant decline in sub-Saharan Africa’s exports to the U.S.
AGOA is set to expire on Sept. 30, and there has been no definitive confirmation on its fate. Should it collapse, the prognosis looks dire. A 2019 World Bank study warned that losing AGOA could cost Lesotho 1% of its GDP by 2020. And Ethiopia’s 2022 AGOA suspension saw 11,500 jobs vanish.
Opinion: Trump’s tariffs are gutting Africa — and America’s influence
Job moves
The World Bank Group recently announced Tsutomu Yamamoto as the incoming managing director of the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, or MIGA.
Yamamoto joins from Mizuho Financial Group, where he previously worked with Indian fintech companies and promoted the digitalization of electronic bank guarantees, according to a press release.
Elsewhere, Ellen Brooks is succeeding Allie Burns as the CEO of Village Capital, which has supported close to 1,800 startups through more than 150 investments since 2009. Brooks joins from the International Rescue Committee, where she was director of innovative finance and an occasional Devex contributor.
Mayhem in Belém
The 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP30, in Belém, Brazil, does not start until Nov. 10, but the familiar concerns about who gets to go at all are already surfacing.
“Hotel prices have surged since the announcement, with some rooms now listed at starting prices of $2,000 and above,” Júlia Gouveia, a climate change and emergencies specialist at Plan International Brazil, writes in this opinion piece for Devex. “Even budget hostels that once charged $15 are now asking for hundreds — often with concerns about basic safety standards.”
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“Accommodation offers for youth groups also often involve shared dorms with multiple beds, which raises serious safety and security concerns, especially for girls and young women. Meanwhile, the process for securing accreditation remains opaque and limited. Even if you can physically get to Belém, there’s no guarantee you’ll get through the gates,” she writes.
Among the possible solutions, according to Gouveia:
• A price ceiling for hotels and guesthouses officially registered to operate during the summit.
• Subsidized domestic travel for civil society delegations,
• A social fare agreement with major airlines, encouraging them to offer reduced or capped fares for flights to Belém between October and December.
• Reporting mechanisms to identify and address cases of economic exploitation or price gouging.
Opinion: For Brazilians, the barriers to COP30 participation are overwhelming
Mark your calendars
Interested in how the European Commission is using its guarantee instrument — the European Fund for Sustainable Development Plus, or EFSD+?
Next Tuesday, Aug. 19, Juho Uusihakala, senior development impact adviser at Finnfund, will offer a behind-the-scenes look at how the Finnish DFI provides technical support to its investees under EFSD+. Register now for this Devex Pro Funding Briefing.
And as many philanthropies try to move away from short-term, projectized funding toward long-term, partnership-centered approaches, the Ford Foundation’s BUILD initiative is almost 10 years into strengthening civil society institutions through long-term, flexible support.
Victoria Dunning, director of the BUILD initiative, joins us for a Devex Pro Funding Briefing on Wednesday, Aug. 20, to discuss how Ford measures success, what BUILD has learned, and advice for grantees. Don’t miss this event — sign up now.
+ These two briefings are exclusively for Devex Pro members. Not yet a Pro member? Start your 15-day free trial today to access all our expert analyses, insider insights, funding data, events, and more. Check out all the exclusive content and events available to you.
What we’re reading
IFC-backed, for-profit hospitals have destabilized the finances of families across East Africa, a yearlong investigation has found. [International Consortium of Investigative Journalists]
The U.S. may have withdrawn from Indonesia’s $20 billion Just Energy Transition Partnership, but Japan is stepping in, favoring Japanese-developed technologies over the rapid coal phaseout originally envisioned. [Devex]
This time last year, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres had his eyes fixed on the Pact for the Future. Now, the U.N. is undertaking a very different kind of reform, to cut costs and shrink the U.N. secretariat and specialized agencies. [Devex]
About the author
Vince Chadwickvchadw
Vince Chadwick is a contributing reporter at Devex. A law graduate from Melbourne, Australia, he was social affairs reporter for The Age newspaper, before covering breaking news, the arts, and public policy across Europe, including as a reporter and editor at POLITICO Europe. He was long-listed for International Journalist of the Year at the 2023 One World Media Awards.
