John Gandolfo, IFC’s Treasurer: Looking Towards Recovery from Covid-19 and a Green, Resilient, Inclusive Future

The Covid-19 crisis has impacted the health and livelihoods of many millions of people across the planet, and it continues to impose an enormous toll on the poor, threatening decades of progress towards raising living standards in the developing world.

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KPMG Lower Gulf: Banking on ESG Risks in Future

ESG risks have the potential of negatively impacting banks’ assets, earning capacity, and sometimes their reputation, argues Abbas Basrai. Environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors and the emerging risks associated with them are becoming increasingly relevant to organizations, especially banks.

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Rescue by Helicopter Reserves

The world woke up on Monday 23 with higher international reserves for all countries. A new allocation of US$650 billion (SDR450 billion) in Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to its member countries has entered into

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China’s Renminbi Needs Convertibility to Internationalise

On July 21, the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF) published its eighth annual report on Global Public Investors (GPI). It included a survey the asset allocation plans of reserve managers of central banks, sovereign wealth funds, and public

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OECD: Business as Usual? Forget About That, and Prepare for Novel and Impactful Variations on a Theme

As we turn our attention towards the imperative of “building forward greener” post-pandemic, there can be no more business as usual. This was Sir Ronald Cohen’s message at the OECD Blended Finance & Impact Week in February. During his keynote

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Otaviano Canuto: Are We on the Verge of a New Commodity Super-Cycle?

Commodity prices have recovered their 2020 losses and, in most cases, are now above pre-pandemic levels (Figure 1). The pace of Chinese growth since 2020 and the economic recovery that has accompanied vaccine rollouts are driving demand upward, while supply

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Interview with Grete Faremo, Executive Director of UNOPS: Inclusive Infrastructure Development

In pre-pandemic Oct 2019 (about 20 months ago) you wrote an article for CFI.co magazine that highlighted the importance of infrastructure for communities, sustainable development and across the SDGs. If so, how have the world and your conclusions changed? While

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Evan Harvey, Nasdaq – SPACs and ESG: Convergence or Collision?

The capital markets love nothing more than a new idea, especially one that promises to reward a little due diligence with a lot of return. The idea of ESG (environmental, social, and governance) has tantalised investors in this way. According

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Deloitte: Changes on the Horizon for Europe’s Alternative Investment Fund Market

The European Commission’s ongoing efforts to establish the Capital Market Union have reached the alternative investment manager’s market in Europe. It has launched a legislative review cycle of the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD), giving the industry the first

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IBM Thought Leadership: Transparency Makes the Invisible Hand Visible Again, And Inclusive

Paolo Sironi is the global research leader in Banking and Financial Markets at IBM, Institute of Business Value. IBV is the thought leadership centre of IBM. Financial markets and economic systems are still exposed to periodic collapses, notwithstanding unprecedented institutional

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