The multilateral system channels a growing share of official development assistance (ODA), reflecting its increasing significance in an era of overlapping crises and development challenges. However, as the system is pressed to address an expanding array of humanitarian and development issues, its limitations are becoming apparent, prompting a strong push for reforms to enhance its capacity. This fourth edition of the Multilateral Development Finance report sheds light on the aid flows directed to and from the multilateral development system and assesses the impact of ongoing reforms. Highlighting the need to manage the risky trade-offs introduced by recent evolutions, such as the growing reliance on financial innovation, the report proposes solutions to make the system fit for the future. This edition is enriched with online data visualisations showing how members of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) use the multilateral system.

Finance & Development, June 2024.

This book explores the evolution of the 30 functioning multilateral development banks (MDBs). MDBs have their roots in the growing system of international finance and multilateral cooperation, with the first recognisable MDB being proposed by Latin America in financial cooperation with the US in the late 1930s. That Inter-American Bank did not eventuate but was a precursor to the World Bank being negotiated at Bretton Woods in 1944. Since then, a complex network of regional, sub-regional, and specialised development banks has progressively emerged across the globe, including two significant recent entrants established by China and the BRICS. MDBs arrange loans, credits, and guarantees for investment in member states, generally with the stated aim of fostering economic growth. They operate in both the Global North and South, though there are more MDBs focusing on emerging and developing states. While the World Bank and some of the larger regional banks have been scrutinised, little attention has been paid to the smaller banks or the overall system. This book provides the first study of all 30 MDBs and it evaluates their interrelationships. It analyses the emergence of the MDBs in relation to geopolitics, development paradigms and debt. It includes sections on each of the banks as well as on how MDBs have approached the key sectors of infrastructure, human development, and climate. This book will be of particular interest to researchers of development finance, global governance, and international political economy.

We use loan-level data on syndicated lending to a large sample of developing countries between 1993 and 2017 to estimate the mobilization effects of multilateral development banks (MDBs), controlling for a large set of fixed effects. We find evidence of positive and significant direct and indirect mobilization effects of multilateral lending on the number of deals and on the total size of bank inflows. The number of lending banks and the average maturity of syndicated loans also increase after MDB lending. These effects are present not only on impact, but they last up to three years and are not offset by a decline in bond financing. There is no evidence of anticipation effects and the results are not driven by confounding factors, such as the presence of large global banks, Chinese lending and aid flows. Finally, the economic effects are sizable, suggesting that MBDs can play a vital role to mobilize private sector financing to achieve the goals of the 2030 Development Agenda.

This report provides a year-by-year overview of the main trends in development finance with biodiversity-related objectives for the period 2015-22, considering a wide range of sources: bilateral providers from Development Assistance Committee (DAC) members and beyond, including South-South and triangular co-operation providers; multilateral development banks and other multilateral institutions; private finance mobilised by development finance; and private philanthropy. The estimates are based on statistical data from the OECD and the International Forum on Total Official Support for Sustainable Development (TOSSD), capturing both official development assistance and non-concessional development finance. They include breakdowns by provider, sector, financial instrument and recipient country grouping, as well as details on financial allocations to the mainstreaming of biodiversity, climate change, Indigenous peoples and local communities, and gender equality. The evidence aims to help DAC members and other stakeholders implement the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework under the Convention on Biological Diversity and track the contribution of development finance against its Target 19 on resource mobilisation.

A positive chapter has begun in finance for poor countries. Yet progress remains tentative. This book looks at how to make international finance better serve the needs of poor countries and poor people. It contains contributions by economists and political scientists who have been at the centre of the international policy debate.

Nearly three years after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, a succession of mutually reinforcing crises and a challenging global context are putting the multilateral development system under pressure. Multilateral development finance is stretched across an ever expanding list of priorities, ranging from humanitarian crisis response to the provision of global and regional public goods. The urgent nature of these crises requires renewed efforts to strengthen the financial capacity of the multilateral development system but should not divert attention from other parts of the reform agenda, such as the need to reduce the fragmentation of the multilateral architecture. This third edition of the Multilateral Development Finance report presents recent trends in multilateral development finance in order to inform decisions by the members of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) on their strategic engagement with multilateral organisations. It presents an overview of challenges and ongoing reform efforts, and examines the evolution of financial flows to, and from, multilateral organisations. The report is supplemented by online statistics on DAC members' multilateral contributions, available in the Development Co-operation Profiles.