I am writing this edition of Newswire from the closing reception of Devex World 2022 Tuesday as severe thunderstorms dump sheets of rain just beyond the overhanging roof of the Mead Center’s terrace in southwest Washington, D.C.
This is a preview of Newswire
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It’s an appropriate — if heavy-handed — backdrop for this end-of-day networking session — a moment to rebuild the muscle memory of meeting face-to-face over a drink and light appetizers, but under the dark skies and lightning flashes of new COVID-19 variants, 100 million people displaced from their homes, and crises of education, food, and climate.
Have fun, but remember that the sky is falling and you’d better get back to work in the morning, it seems to say.
But what is the global development community working toward? If this is the “new normal” — overlapping and unrelenting crises, dwindling resources, failing trust, sluggish and inequitable response — then what, as Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar asked during the opening plenary, is a “better normal?”
That’s the question our reporters have tried to prod and illuminate over the course of a day that began with Bill Gates and ended with a sustainable fashion show.
Bill of the ball
Private philanthropy cannot substitute for public funding of pandemic preparedness, and rich governments have no business calling those investments “aid,” said Bill Gates in a video interview shared at Devex World.
“Since pandemic preparedness is a benefit to the rich countries, it shouldn’t be thought of as aid in any way, shape, or form.” Rather, “it's part of their defense budget for bioterrorism or health budgets to prevent the deaths. Certainly, private philanthropy isn't there to help rich countries do that work,” Gates said, noting that philanthropists don’t have the scale or legitimacy to stand in for government spending.
Learn more: Gates pushes for more innovation, funding to fight next pandemic
More for Pro members: Read the Gates Foundation's top 10 health grant winners and economists' recommendations on how to get vaccines to poorer countries quicker in the next pandemic. Not gone Pro yet? Start your 15-day free trial today.
+ In the coming days, stay tuned to the Newswire and Devex.com for more reporting on what happened at Devex World, including insights from PEPFAR chief Dr. John Nkengasong and IFC Managing Director Makhtar Diop.
The debt don’t die
“Hunger is the most pressing solvable problem in the world today — because we produce enough food today to feed everybody but we don't distribute this food to feed everybody.”
— Kristalina Georgieva, managing director, International Monetary FundThe IMF chief said at Devex World that “there is a growing risk of a debt crisis” due to borrowing amid the COVID-19 pandemic, tightening monetary policy, and the rising cost of servicing debt in U.S. dollars.
Georgieva also explained why IMF, under her leadership, has leaned toward thinking of social safety nets, climate change, and other challenges more often associated with its development-focused counterparts as critical macro shocks that her institution must consider.
"Who on this planet can say that climate shocks don't matter for macro and financial stability?" she asked.
Read more: IMF chief sees 'growing risk of a debt crisis'
+ For more on how agriculture, nutrition, and sustainability intersect to remake the global food system, sign up to Devex Dish, a free, must-read weekly newsletter — and get a copy sent to your inbox today.
Democracy downturn
On stage at Devex World, Mark Malloch-Brown recalled that when he ran the United Nations Development Programme in the early 2000s, the number of democracies in the world doubled. Now that he’s at the helm of the Open Society Foundations, the trend lines are pointing in the opposite direction.
Malloch-Brown said that what is needed is a shift among international institutions toward a more cooperative model that is incredibly hard to achieve at a moment when Western leaders are looking over their own shoulders at anti-democratic movements that monopolize their energy and attention.
“It has left leaders with no bandwidth and imagination and will to go there. … This isn't actually about just encouraging Biden to be a bit more ambitious on what he'll put up to Congress; this is about a kind of generational change of leadership,” he said.
Read: OSF's Malloch-Brown hopes leaders can break 'democratic dysfunction'
Background reading: Why the Ukraine crisis is a defining moment for OSF
Flatlining
For the first time in its 10-year history, the Aid Transparency Index, compiled every two years by U.K. NGO Publish What You Fund, didn’t record a significant increase in transparency among the organizations it surveys.
Last month, Publish What You Fund CEO Gary Forster warned that this could be the last edition of the index unless new funding can be found. “There isn’t a backup option. This isn’t a drill,” Forster said. “The evidence shows that without the incentive which the Index provides, or the feedback it offers to agencies, the quality of the global dataset deteriorates precipitously.”
Read: Aid Transparency Index finds a worrying U-turn
Recap: Aid Transparency Index at risk of closure
In other news
A lack of production capacity is likely to stifle efforts to widely disperse the first malaria vaccine approved by the World Health Organization. [Reuters]
The U.N. Security Council has passed a resolution extending aid deliveries across the Turkey-Syria border for another six months, but NGOs warn that the limited timeframe will put people in danger. [Al Jazeera]
Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe — appointed acting president after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who has promised to resign Wednesday, fled to the Maldives — ordered the military to "do whatever is necessary to restore order.” [BBC]
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About the author
Michael Igoe@AlterIgoe
Michael Igoe is a Senior Reporter with Devex, based in Washington, D.C. He covers U.S. foreign aid, global health, climate change, and development finance. Prior to joining Devex, Michael researched water management and climate change adaptation in post-Soviet Central Asia, where he also wrote for EurasiaNet. Michael earned his bachelor's degree from Bowdoin College, where he majored in Russian, and his master’s degree from the University of Montana, where he studied international conservation and development.
