This week Devex reporters traveled to Marrakech, Morocco, to report on the highly anticipated World Bank-International Monetary Fund annual meetings. Ajay Banga, the World Bank’s new president, used the gathering as an opportunity to outline his priorities for the institution, which includes reforming the bank so that it can lend more efficiently and making it more impact-focused so that it will be in a better shape to request a capital increase. While Banga called for increased collaboration between multilateral development banks and vowed to increase the financial institution’s lending capacity, civil society groups have been calling for it to release free money to countries already struggling with debt repayments.For the latest episode of the podcast, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar sits down with Managing Editor Anna Gawel, who’s in Marrakech, to discuss what we learned from the annual meetings and what it means for the global development sector. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters.

Even though the U.S. government avoided a shutdown this week, serious concerns remain over whether lawmakers will be able to hammer out a federal budget for fiscal 2024 within the next 45 days, leaving the future funding of several development programs up in the air.This week we also had an exclusive story on the $1.5 billion Saving Lives and Livelihoods Initiative, which was temporarily halted amid an audit due to several issues, including the failure to pay workers in Nigeria for months worth of work and missing contracts and receipts. The three-year program, launched by the Mastercard Foundation and Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in 2021, is the largest public health partnership between a global philanthropic organization and an African institution and has employed more than 22,000 people. Ahead of the World Bank annual meetings in Marrakech, Morocco, next week, we reported that the institution’s president, Ajay Banga, hopes to make available up to $125 billion additional lending over the next 10 years through reforms. To dig into these stories, as well as to gain an update on PEPFAR’s potential reauthorization, tune in to the latest episode of the podcast. Devex President & EiC Raj Kumar sits down with Senior Reporter Adva Saldinger, as well as Olusoji Adeyi, the president of Resilient Health Systems and senior associate at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, to discuss the most important news this week. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters.

Following the release of “White Savior,” a new HBO documentary series following Renee Bach, a white missionary who tasked herself with managing a clinic in Uganda with no medical training, we reflect on the idea of of white savior complex and its implications for the global development sector. As well as discussing how to make localization initiatives more effective, we also delve into a Devex article that examines how the U.S. Agency for International Development can reach its localization goal of giving 25% of eligible funds to local partners by 2025.For this episode of the podcast, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar is joined by global strategy and development leader Nasra Ismail to dig into these stories and how they are intertwined when we consider how global development professionals can make meaningful change in lower-income countries. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters.

Last week saw the annual gathering of heads of state, thought leaders, civil society members, development professionals, and other industry personalities in New York City for the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly. In addition to our very own Devex @ UNGA 78 summit that happened on the sidelines of the main event, we reported on the most important news affecting the drive to reach the Sustainable Development Goals as well as the United States push to reduce the U.N.’s role in the reform of the international financial system.For this special episode of the podcast, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar sits down with our resident U.N. expert Colum Lynch to discuss what we learned at UNGA 78, including the most surprising moments and the key outcomes from the summit. You can also check out our special UNGA 78 roundup newsletter.Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters.

In this special sponsored episode of This Week in Global Development, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar sits down with Natalie Samarasinghe, head of global advocacy at Open Society Foundations, and Richard Gowan, U.N. Director at Crisis Group, to discuss to what’s likely to come out of this year’s United Nations General Assembly, the trust deficit facing the multilateral system, and whether this global gathering is even fit for purpose anymore.They also delve into the results of Open Society Foundations’ new poll on global public opinion towards human rights and democracy.This episode of This Week in Global Development is sponsored by Open Society Foundations.

With the high-level general debate of the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly taking place next week, leaders from around the world will be gathering in New York City to talk through some of the biggest issues facing societies around the world, including how we can best meet the Sustainable Development Goals and tackle the climate crisis. For this week we have a special episode of the podcast, in which Devex Managing Editor Anna Gawel sits down with our Global Reporter Colum Lynch. From whether Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit will overshadow other global issues to increasing poverty rates around the world, they discuss the key talking points ahead of the summit. Sign up to Devex Newswire and our other newsletters. You can also register to attend in person or online Devex @ UNGA 78, our very own summit taking place on the sidelines of the most important discussions.

This week The END Fund announced Tsitsi Masiyiwa as the organization’s new board chair, with the aim of ushering in more African voices into discussions about increasing funding for neglected tropical diseases. During our conversation, we explored the role played by boards in influencing the work of philanthropic organizations. In the United Kingdom, we reported that up to £2.68 billion ($3.37 billion) could be diverted back to aid programs overseas after the U.K. tightened its laws on refugees, which means it can no longer claim spending on asylum seekers as official development assistance.To dig into these stories and others, I sat down with Anera President and CEO Sean Carroll, as well as Devex Managing Editor Anna Gawel, for the latest episode of the This Week in Global Development podcast. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters.

This week Devex Climate Correspondent William Worley sat down with Meike van Ginneken, the Netherlands’ special envoy for water, who argued that we should be prioritizing investment to help overcome issues related to water shortages in the face of climate change rather than subsidizing fossil fuels. In addition to looking back at our Devex Pro event with former senior USAID official Chuck Pope and digging into the agency’s localization targets, we also discussed an opinion piece written by former deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. Treasury Department Nancy Lee, who outlines why country-owned strategies will be key to achieving development goals.To find out more about these stories, make sure to check out the latest episode of the podcast, where I sit down with Larry Cooley, president emeritus and senior adviser at Management Systems International, to discuss the past week's top stories from the global development sector. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters.

For the latest episode of the podcast, I am joined by global strategy and development leader Nasra Ismail and Devex Business Editor David Ainsworth to discuss the top stories in global development, including insights into Open Society Foundations’ reorganization. This week we learned that USAID’s NextGen global health supply chain contracts, which collectively are worth $16.8 billion over 10 years, are being delayed. We discuss the possible reasoning behind this, as well as its potential impact. We are also joined by Devex Climate Correspondent Will Worley live from Stockholm, who provided an update on the World Water Week conference happening in the Swedish capital. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters.

This week we broke an exclusive story on the United States, the United Kingdom, and a handful of allied powers blocking an agreement on a draft declaration that advocates the need to accelerate progress on a set of critical development goals, throwing a spanner into high-level negotiations ahead of the United Nations General Assembly taking place next month. In the United Kingdom, an inquiry has been told that development assistance rules are denying “vulnerable” small island developing states, or SIDS, the help they need to combat the climate emergency as they are classified as “too rich” to receive funding. The U.K. government also received strong criticism for its aid being used to fund the training of soccer referees and coaches across China, even as spending reductions are predicted to lead to thousands of deaths this year across Africa and Yemen.However, the U.K. is not the only country planning aid cuts. Germany’s ruling coalition has proposed to reduce its aid budget by proposing a 5% cut for 2024, setting off alarm bells in development circles.For the latest episode of the podcast, I was joined by University of Oxford professor Stefan Dercon and Devex Managing Editor Anna Gawel to discuss the past week’s important stories from global development.Please note that we will not be recording an episode next week due to the Devex Summer Break. We will be back in two weeks’ time to continue bringing you the top stories from the sector. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters.