The World Bank reports the African region will receive $45 billion of the $75 billion allocated for development purposes. It says other recipients will include small Pacific island states threatened by climate change and fragile countries in the Western Hemisphere, such as Haiti. [...] The fund, which runs from July 1 through June 30, 2020, also will support specific development projects in 82 additional fragile states, including Guinea, Nepal, Niger, and Tajikistan.

Mobile apps for social good used to be trendy, but international aid organizations need to think harder about how they can use the data they collect, says one senior program manager at the U.S. Agency for International Development. [...] Mobile technology is most useful when the data it produces lets aid groups send resources to the exact place they're needed

The World Bank (WB) Group and the Islamic Development Bank Group (IDBG) are ready to provide bonds to increase financing for the Middle East and North African (MENA) countries recovering from war or coping with refugees, WB President Jim Yong Kim said Saturday.
 

Beijing: China will hold a 30.34 percent stake in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the Finance Ministry said on Monday, making Beijing the largest shareholder in a multilateral institution that will project the country's growing soft power. China will have 26.06 percent of the voting rights in the bank, a Chinese-led development bank that will rival institutions such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. Countries defined as "within the region" will hold a 75 percent stake in the bank, the min

What are the implications of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank for the next U.S. president? (...) Currently, 57 countries are confirmed founding members. The United States stands alone.Critics of the U.S. decision not to join see Washington sidelined as allies jump on the AIIB bandwagon. 

So, where does the power of the NDB lie? Precisely in its limited, yet politically powerful, BRICS membership. Its lessened economic power is compensated for by its vast soft power, merely by the fact of limiting its membership to the founding BRICS members.

The people who took part in the Jubilee 2000 and Make Poverty History campaigns are still there. They haven’t gone away. The calculation, however, is that there are no votes in development - which is why, when the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank meet in Washington later this week, the talks will not impinge on the election campaign. George Osborne and Ed Balls will be looking to see how they can exploit what the IMF says about the health of the UK economy for domestic political reasons, but that’s about it.