This week we are in Davos closely following the conversations taking place at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. This year’s discussions have focused heavily on artificial intelligence and its potential impact on the humanitarian and development sectors. We also dig into our key takeaways from the conference, along with the question of whether we have reached a turning point when it comes to giving a voice to the global south.

In addition to AI, climate change also took center stage at the summit, and we contemplate whether this is an indication that leaders are recognizing the gravity of the situation and its link to issues around global health.

Will AI transform global development? And what impact will blockchain technology have on the sector?

For the latest edition of our podcast series, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar sat down with Hedera Chief Policy Officer Nilmini Rubin and BRAC Executive Director Asif Saleh to discuss the top global development stories from the past week.

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The “billions to trillions” narrative — the idea that a relatively small amount of public financing can be used to crowd in trillions of dollars in private capital to solve climate and other development challenges — has been discussed in development finance circles for nearly a decade now. And yet there’s still an annual $4 trillion gap in financing for energy, water, and other critical development objectives.

Speaking to Devex’s Raj Kumar, Samaila Zubairu, CEO of the Africa Finance Corporation shared how his organization is leveraging public-private partnerships in “risky” countries such as Gabon and Djibouti, and what larger multilateral development banks should be doing to be more effective.

“What is most important is for us to introduce more urgency in our approach to work. We need to really start to focus on outcomes,” Zubairu said. “We should all be accountable. We should be looking at what's the baseline at a certain period of time, and what are we doing to cause improvements to happen.”

Zubairu joined Kumar for the Davos Dispatch podcast, recorded from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

While a new year for many heralds a fresh start, the war that broke out in Gaza in October 2023 continues to rage, with the death toll numbering in the thousands. We take a look at the conflict from a global development and humanitarian lens by speaking with representatives from organizations doing aid work there to get an insider perspective on the crisis.

They reveal the obstacles they face — such as the lack of fuel and inability to keep in touch with staff — and how they try to meet the needs of those affected by the war.

What is the situation like on the ground? What are the misconceptions in the media?

To find out, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar and Managing Editor Anna Gawel sit down with Arnaud Quemin, Middle East-North Africa/Europe regional director for Mercy Corps, as well as Anera Regional Development Lead Saddam Sayyaleh for the latest episode of the This Week in Global Development podcast.

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The middle class is the most successful group in world history, but today, it’s facing a bit of an identity crisis. The realities of automation, climate change and other factors are straining the once ubiquitous middle class dream, and younger generations are questioning whether it’s really all it’s cracked up to be.

In his new book, "The Rise of the Global Middle Class: How the Search for the Good Life Can Change the World," economist and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Sustainable Development Homi Kharas traces the evolution of the middle class all the way from its roots in Victorian England, and ultimately offers a new policy agenda that could pave a way forward.

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Like many of us, Rajiv Shah knew early on that he wanted to make an impact on the world, but he wasn’t quite sure how to do it. His book, "Big Bets: How Large-Scale Change Really Happens," opens with some of that early uncertainty, like the summer he spent treating leprosy patients in India, and his time working on Al Gore’s ultimately doomed campaign.

But as Raj writes in his book, that uncertainty was all part of an important realization he’d eventually come to: that large-scale change doesn’t come from caution, but from what he calls a “big bets philosophy,” which says that it’s only by trying to fundamentally solve, not just improve, pressing problems that the world can truly be transformed.

For more information on upcoming episodes and to sign up for our mailing list, visit the Devex Book Club here: https://pages.devex.com/devex-book-club.html

The agreement to operationalize a new fund for loss and damage was a key achievement of this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP 28. But key questions remain about how that fund will work to get financial resources to countries experiencing the impacts of climate change.

It’s part of a broader conversation about climate vulnerability and resilience — how to measure it, how it relates to a country’s income status, and how to quantify the costs of climate change impacts.

“These are things that will be with you forever — your entire trajectory, your entire life, your entire space has changed fundamentally and in a permanent way. So the solutions cannot be sliced and diced solutions,” argues Gene Leon, president of the Caribbean Development Bank, in this episode of the Climate + podcast.

Leon outlined how support for countries experiencing loss and damage due to climate change can help them regain their footing — and rediscover an economic growth trajectory on a changing planet.

The Climate + podcast is supported by the World Bank:

https://www.devex.com/organizations/world-bank-group-38382

This Week in Global Development is back for its first episode of the New Year, and this week, we took a look ahead at what we can expect to come down the pike in 2024.

It’s an election year in the U.S., and bipartisanship is in short supply. Many of the legislative challenges of 2023—including those around foreign aid— are carrying into the new year, adding more pressure to a dam that’s already quite full. Republican presidential hopefuls are even going so far as to call for the defunding of the United Nations.

Luckily, not everything comes down to funding—we also discussed the U.S. Agency for International Development’s new Locally Led Programs indicator, which sets a standard for determining whether a given program can be considered, well, locally led.

Joining Devex’s President and Editor-in-Chief to break down these topics is Stefan Dercon, the former chief economist at the U.K. Department of International Development and current Professor of Economic Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, as well as Devex Managing Editor Anna Gawel.

Welcome to 2024, and thanks for tuning in!

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The United Nations climate change conference in Dubai, or COP 28, was a big moment for food systems. For the first time, COP included a day dedicated to food and agriculture, which many see as an important signal that silos between climate and food policy are starting to break down.

Still, less than 5% of climate finance is invested in food systems, despite the massive need for financial support for priorities such as regenerative agriculture, reducing food loss and waste, and sustainable livestock management, says Ertharin Cousin, former head of the World Food Programme, in this episode of Devex’s Climate + podcast.

“Ensuring that we are part of the finance dialogue is as critical as ensuring that we are part of the substantive dialogue around the actions,” Cousin said.

It’s an urgent challenge, considering existing — and increasing — levels of food insecurity, and what a changing climate likely means for those unserved by the existing food system, says Ismahane Elouafi, chief scientist at the Food and Agriculture Organization.

“It’s broken because it’s not nourishing us. It’s broken because it’s part of the climate crisis … and it’s broken because we haven’t been able to use agriculture, really, to uplift people from poverty,” Elouafi said.

The Climate + podcast is supported by the World Bank.

The annual United Nations climate conferences, or COPs, have become much more than just a forum for technical and political negotiations. They’re also a convening space for representatives from the likes of civil society, academia, and the private sector. Corporations now have an increasingly significant role to play in shaping the climate conversation and — crucially — in ensuring their own operations are environmentally sustainable.

For a global technology company like Microsoft, being present at COP is important not just because of the potential tools and solutions the company can offer, but also due to the implications of climate change for its business and operations, said Melanie Nakagawa, Microsoft’s Chief Sustainability Officer.

Joining the Climate + podcast from COP28 in Dubai, Nakagawa shared Microsoft's priorities around investing in carbon removal, using artificial intelligence to accelerate progress on sustainability, and improving sustainability reporting mechanisms and governance. “We want to make sure corporations are stepping up and doing what they can do to rapidly reduce emissions, and… to remove what they can't,” Nakagawa said.

The Climate + podcast is supported by the World Bank. To learn more about efforts to end poverty on a livable planet, check out the link.

The Paris Climate Agreement, established at COP 21 in 2015, calls for leaders and institutions across society to work towards reducing their carbon emissions with the aim of reaching net zero by 2050. Multilateral development banks, or MDBs, which have a critical role to play in the climate finance landscape, are in the process of figuring out what it means to deliver on their commitment to “Paris alignment”.

“Delivery means really, for us, implementing what we have committed to do and working with the countries in which we invest in order to accompany them in this green transition,” said Odile Renaud-Basso, President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, in the latest episode of the Climate + podcast. EBRD aims for 50% of its investments to be in support of the green transition by 2025, she added.

Renaud-Basso joined Devex senior reporter Adva Saldinger to delve deeper into EBRD’s climate priorities, the bank’s approach and timeline for phasing out investments in fossil fuels, what MDBs can do to mobilize more private capital for climate investments, and how MDBs can work better together to support countries with their climate goals.

This podcast episode was recorded with a live online audience as part of Devex’s wider Climate + event programming at COP 28.

The Climate + podcast is supported by the World Bank. To learn more about efforts to end poverty on a livable planet, check out the link.