The Inter-American Development Bank will vote for a new president to help steer the Latin American lender through some pretty difficult days ahead.
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Also in today’s edition: The U.K. will pump more cash into aid. We have a profile on the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet’s Sundaa Bridgett-Jones, some sad news about Michael Gerson, and a look at the picks for chair of the Development Assistance Committee.
IDB leadership contest
The Inter-American Development Bank will be keen to put the sordid events of the last few months behind it after this weekend’s vote for a new president. You’ll recall Mauricio Claver-Carone left kicking and screaming and threatening to sue after allegations of an improper sexual relationship with a staffer.
It couldn’t have come at a worse time for Latin America and the Caribbean, still reeling from the economic aftershocks of COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine, which jacked up fuel and food prices.
There are five candidates, one a woman, and they are all from Latin America; rarely one is from the Caribbean. Claver-Carone was a controversial pick because not only was he a Trump nominee, he is a U.S. citizen instead of someone from the region.
“The last two years have been difficult in a lot of respects,” former IDB senior official Therese Turner-Jones tells my colleague Shabtai Gold. “People are looking for a leader who can chart a new course.”
The new president will face immediate pressure to reform the bank and take riskier positions to expand its balance sheet while expanding its remit to tackle climate change, writes Shabtai. The region, but especially the Caribbean, has demonstrated the need for a climate agenda.
Read: After sex scandal, IDB looks for a reset at Sunday's vote
ICYMI: Latin American development bank ousts chief, ex-Citi banker takes over
UK ups money for aid
The United Kingdom has found an additional £2.5 billion (roughly $3 billion) — to be spent over the next two years — to support the aid budget after “significant and unanticipated” spending on refugees siphoned money away from development and humanitarian programs. The government is also close to lifting its freeze on nonessential aid spending, so that’s good news.
The new money is a decent chunk of change, but not enough to plug the spending gap in other development areas.
“The Government’s Autumn Statement made positive claims … but masked a deeply troubling reality: real terms aid cuts to children living in the world’s hardest places,” says World Vision UK’s Mark Sheard. “The UK is pulling back its support when more is desperately needed.”
The amount spent on receiving Afghan and Ukrainian refugees is thought to have ballooned to between £3 billion and £5 billion, putting massive pressure on budgets, writes my colleague William Worley.
And with the U.K. struggling with record inflation, an economy in recession, and an energy crisis, it’s unlikely new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will shell out any more for overseas aid for a while.
UK autumn budget: Government to spend an extra £2.5bn to help refugee costs
+ Catch up on all the latest news and analysis on the U.K. aid sector.
A different Bridgett-Jones
Any discussion around climate change must have the right mix of voices so that solutions to the catastrophic effects of extreme weather can be found at ground zero. Sundaa Bridgett-Jones has spent her career raising her voice to achieve that mix.
A longtime policy expert with The Rockefeller Foundation, Bridgett-Jones is now part of the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet, or GEAPP, where she serves as vice president and chief advocacy officer.
She’s also a Black woman — few and far between in the discourse on climate, she tells my colleague Stephanie Beasley.
It should be a no-brainer. Numerous studies prove that disasters caused by extreme weather disproportionately affect the global south and non-white communities. But Bridgett-Jones says she’s usually one of few women, and even fewer Black women, in a room full of white men.
Read: Sundaa Bridgett-Jones champions diversity in climate talks
Foundations go green
Bridgett-Jones also talked about the financial backing GEAPP has clinched from a trio of foundations — Bezos Earth Fund, IKEA Foundation, and The Rockefeller Foundation — to raise $100 billion in public and private capital for renewable energy projects in the global south.
Leveraging $10 billion in commitments from its founding partners, which include several multilateral development banks, is core to GEAPP’s plan to draw more investors to renewable energy projects in lower-income countries struggling to get climate financing and risk being left behind as more nations transition to greener energy.
Read: Green energy alliance with $100B goal gains new partners at COP 27 (Pro)
+ Will COP 27 be a success for climate advocates or will key demands fall short? In the aftermath of the negotiations, join us for a Devex Pro Live event on Nov. 22 at 9 a.m. ET to assess the outcomes.
$7B from Gates
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will spend $7 billion on areas like food security, health, and gender equality in African nations over the next four years.
Bill Gates underscored the importance innovation will play in achieving development goals in an atmosphere of diminished foreign aid spending. “A lot of these health and climate solutions are going to have to be very frugal,” he said during a talk at the University of Nairobi, Kenya, where he’s visiting for the first time in 12 years.
The foundation will also soon set up a regional office in Nairobi, Kenya’s State House said.
‘He came up with the name’
Michael Gerson, speechwriter and adviser to former U.S. President George W. Bush, has died aged 58.
Gerson is probably best known for his key — and controversial — role in shaping the Bush administration’s messaging and response to the Sept. 11 attacks. But he is also one of the architects of groundbreaking U.S. global health initiatives that dramatically expanded the ambitions of U.S. foreign assistance and reshaped the political dynamics of U.S. aid programs.
Mark Dybul, the first head of the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, tells my colleague Michael Igoe that along with then-National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice, Gerson was a key voice in support of a global HIV/AIDS initiative in the pivotal December 2002 White House meeting when Bush signed off on the plan.
“He came up with the name,” Dybul says of Gerson. The speechwriter figured out how to convey the urgency of the crisis — “Emergency” — and the high-level leadership it would take to confront it — “President’s.”
‘He came up with the name’ — Michael Gerson’s PEPFAR legacy
Who gets Moorehead’s DAC chair?
Norway, Denmark, and France have named candidates to chair the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee, replacing the U.K.’s Susanna Moorehead after four years at the helm.
The secretive 31-member DAC sets the rules on what counts as official development assistance, putting it at the center of hot-button debates over how to measure vaccine donations, refugee costs, and private sector instruments, such as budget guarantees.
My colleague Vince Chadwick found out who the candidates are.
Exclusive: The 3-man race to replace Moorehead as DAC chair (Pro)
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In other news
The World Bank's International Finance Corporation will consider a $2 billion support fund for Ukraine that will focus on reconstruction and rebuilding the country's private sector. [Reuters]
Doctors and health workers in Uganda are overwhelmed by fear and funding shortages as a rare strain of Ebola remains a threat. [Al Jazeera]
The European Union's top climate official said Thursday that the bloc will not provide more funding for loss and damage compensation unless tougher emission cuts are discussed. [AP News]
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About the author
Helen Murphy
Helen is an award-winning journalist and Senior Editor at Devex, where she edits coverage on global development in the Americas. Based in Colombia, she previously covered war, politics, financial markets, and general news for Reuters, where she headed the bureau, and for Bloomberg in Colombia and Argentina, where she witnessed the financial meltdown. She started her career in London as a reporter for Euromoney Publications before moving to Hong Kong to work for a daily newspaper.
