This paper focuses on how budgetary scorekeeping systems affect governments’ ability or willingness to support innovative development finance initiatives and explores several options to overcome the restrictions the systems often impose. As a starting point, it assumes that donor governments,...

In this working paper, the authors introduce an MDG Progress Index to assess how on or off track countries are toward MDG targets. They find evidence of dramatic achievements by many poor countries, such as Honduras, Laos, Ethiopia, Uganda, Burkina Faso, Nepal, Cambodia, and Ghana. These...

With the Millennium Development Goals deadline only five years away, the international donor community faces significant challenges due to the global economic crisis, record government deficits, and simultaneous funding requests from nearly every multilateral development institution. This paper...

The World Food Programme has world-class logistics, but its ability to manage financial risk is extremely limited. The WFP procures 100 percent of its food through spot markets, which subjects it to substantial commodity and transport price risks and significant delays delivering food. Relying...

The global economy faces a number of critical challenges ranging from climate change to cross-border health risks to natural-resource scarcities. Many of these so-called global commons problems carry grave risks to economic growth in the developing world and to the livelihoods and welfare of...

The World Food Programme has world-class logistics, but its ability to manage financial risk is extremely limited. The WFP procures 100 percent of its food through spot markets, which subjects it to substantial commodity and transport price risks and significant delays delivering food. Relying...

The World Food Programme has world-class logistics, but its ability to manage financial risk is extremely limited. The WFP procures 100 percent of its food through spot markets, which subjects it to substantial commodity and transport price risks and significant delays delivering food. Relying...

This paper focuses on how budgetary score-keeping systems affect governments' ability or willingness to support innovative development finance initiatives and explores several options to overcome the restrictions the systems often impose. As a starting point, it assumes that donor governments,...