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The New Development Bank and the Institutionalization of the BRICS

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Maiara Folly , Adriana Erthal Abdenur

Brazilian Diplomatic Thought: Policymakers and Agents of Foreign Policy (1750-1964).1 ed.Brasília : Fundação Alexandre de Gusmão, 2017, v.3, p. 891-913.

Antonio Carlos Lessa

Paul Gikaru

Gustavo F Simoes

This publication presents the expenditures and institutional arrangements for the execution of Brazilian cooperation for international development (Cobradi) by the federal government in 2010. The public expenditures considered in this report correspond to disbursements made by public officials in carrying out responsibilities assumed in treaties, conventions, agreements, protocols, institutional acts or international commitments.

Development Policy Review

Sean Burges

Brazil has entered the world of development assistance provision, but with its own twist. This paper looks at what Brazil is doing in the provision of development assistance provision, arguing that despite protestations to the contrary, Brazil does provide ODA. The paper also argues that Brazil is taking a cross-government policy coherent approach to ODA, which includes recruitment of business interests. Turning to the motivations for providing foreign aid, the argument is that there is a genuine and deep concern with global poverty alleviation in Brazil, but that this does not preclude Brazilian policy makers from using aid and development-related activities from advancing the national interest. The added quirk that sets Brazil apart from Northern counterparts is that provision of development assistance offers significant benefits in terms of building internal international bureaucratic experience and helping national firms internationalize their market penetration and activities.

Little is known about new donors and how they are going about their development cooperation activities. Drawing on the Brazilian case, Burges contrasts Western development assistance programming–as an accoutrement to poverty reduction–compared to south-south initiatives that consider assistance as the essential starting point.

Maria Pessina

Revista Eletrônica de Direito Internacional

Valdir Bezerra

This article discusses some of the main points of view about International Organizations (IOs) and Brazil's position on the main symbolic institutes of Global Governance such as the Security Council, the World Bank, the IMF and the World Trade Organization. In parallel, we analyze the positions and criticisms of Brazil regarding certain mechanisms belonging to the relevant International Organizations mentioned above, mainly through political initiatives such as the G4 and BRICS. Lastly, this article will address the challenges facing the South American country over the next few years, especially in face of the new government of Jair Bolsonaro and his foreign policy orientation focused more on bilateralism and contestation of the system, somewhat akin to the United States of Trump, and what this new orientation means for Brazil´s approach to International Relations.

Carlos Eduardo Suprinyak , Ramon Fernandez

The Ford Foundation’s initial effort to assist in the development of the social sciences in Brazil coincided with the early years of the military regime that ruled the country between 1964 and 1985. Given the Foundation’s expressed goal of fostering research that was of potential relevance for public policy, the Brazilian political context posed a difficult dilemma. The issue came to the forefront amid discussions over a proposal for the creation of a Master’s Program in Economics at the University of Brasília (UnB). Although UnB’s modern institutional structure was ideally suited for the Foundation’s purposes, the university had been subject to repeated military interventions in late 1960’s. Moreover, its geographical closeness to the seat of Brazilian political power arose concerns that it could become an instrument in the hands of the military government. Using evidence from the Ford Foundation archives, the paper attempts to illuminate the institutional context surrounding the development of academic economics in Brazil in the late 1960s and early 1970s, in its relations to the deeper social and political currents in effect at the time.

Nonprofit Policy Forum

Patrícia Maria Emerenciano de Mendonça

The aim of this paper is to describe and analyze the presence of US philanthropy in Brazil with regards to the field of human rights from 2003 to 2012, using data from the Foundation Center on 1896 grants totaling $336M. Human rights NGOs are especially important in Brazil. Despite recent growth and development, it is a country that still faces many social, political and human rights challenges. But the local field is still largely dependent on international funding, and US foundations play a traditional and vital role in this scenario, thus it is important to understand recent changes on American foundations priorities. The numbers indicate that the US investment in Brazil is concentrated in few areas (environment and human rights account for 50% of the amount invested), and these priorities are clearly different from those in the Brazilian philanthropic agenda (more focused on education, income generation, youth and community development). When we focus on human rights, we must un...

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Global Public Policy and Governance - Call for Papers: New Development Finance in the Global South: Beyond Bretton Woods

New Development Finance in the Global South: (this opens in a new tab)

Beyond Bretton Woods (this opens in a new tab)

Call for Papers for a (this opens in a new tab)

Special Issue of Global Public Policy and Governance (this opens in a new tab)

Guest Editors

Alvaro Mendez, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK

Karin Costa Vazquez, O.P. Jindal Global University, India

Aims and Scope

Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) play a vital role in financing infrastructure and advancing sustainable development in the Global South. Historically, research has focused on Bretton Woods institutions such as the World Bank, and prominent regional MDBs such as the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). Their extensive reach, strong influence on global development, and strategic geopolitical importance have made them subjects of interest for decades (Humphrey, 2019). In recent times, a growing interest has arisen regarding the inner workings of non-Bretton Woods MDBs driven by emerging economies in the Global South, challenging the North-South imaginary on international development as a Western, postcolonial project characterized by a moral geography of charity and its fit in the world today (Horner, 2020).

MDBs such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the New Development Bank (NDB), the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF) and or the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) have been spearheading this transformation through South-South cooperation by empowering borrowing countries with increased agency and sense of ownership. These MDBs are also refocusing the global debate to the importance of combining aid, trade, and investment under financially and environmentally sustainable frameworks and multilateral arrangements to catalyze structural transformation. This emerging paradigm, coined by scholars as New Development Assistance (NDA) (Jing, Mendez, & Zheng, 2020) and New Asian Development Finance (Vazquez and Zheng, 2021), has been increasingly viewed by experts, policymakers, and civil society as a means to address the shortcomings in governance, infrastructure, and financing that Bretton Woods institutions have not fully addressed.

The aim of this special issue is to improve our understanding of the new development finance provided by Southern-led development banks. While there has been considerable scholarly research on the AIIB and NDB, smaller regional institutions in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and how they interact with larger Southern-led development banks have received less attention. Its contribution to greater and more qualified participation of developing countries in the global economy and the global economic governance, however, is less certain. This issue aims to address this gap by bringing together innovative and interdisciplinary research that sheds light on the added value that these banks bring to the global financial architecture.

Submissions may explore suggested themes/questions, but are not restricted to them. We seek papers aligned with the journal's theme, welcoming innovation and interdisciplinary approaches. Contributions extending beyond suggested areas while remaining thematically relevant are particularly encouraged. We welcome submissions from researchers and practitioners from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds.

• Achieving the SDGs: How do Southern-led MDBs contribute to accelerate and scale up SDGs implementation at the country, regional and global levels? How do they use innovative strategies, partnerships, and knowledge to catalyze structural transformation?
• How Southern-led institutions are actively facilitating and establishing novel spaces and platforms to amplify Southern innovations within global governance, resulting in tangible changes to the system (e.g., the G7 discussing infrastructure).
• South-South Cooperation: How do Southern-led MDBs foster cooperation and empower borrowing countries? How do they empower borrowing countries to participate in / influence the global economy and global economic governance?
• Infrastructure financing: How do Southern-led MDBs innovate in infrastructure financing?
• Climate Change Resilience: How do Southern-led MDBs support climate change resilience and adaptation strategies?
• Addressing Poverty and Inequality: How do Southern-led MDBs tackle economic and social inequalities within and across their member countries? How do they engage with civil society for inclusive development?
• Promoting Gender Equality: How do Southern-led MDBs integrate gender equality into their development strategies, projects, policy formulation and staff composition?
• How do Southern-led MDBs in Asia, Africa, and Latin America differ in terms of their approaches, priorities, and strategies when it comes to addressing the unique development challenges in their respective regions?

Working plan

Please submit an abstract of 1-2 pages in English to [email protected] (this opens in a new tab) by 1 October 2023 . Please include in the submission the research question(s), theoretical framework and/or empirical exploration, methodological approach, and preliminary findings.

Decisions will be made in two weeks after the submission of the abstract. Invited authors shall submit their full papers to [email protected] (this opens in a new tab) by 1 March 2024 .

A workshop, with a hybrid form (virtual and in-person), contingent on global pandemic situations, will be organized by Fudan University in April 2024 for authors to present their papers. 

The workshop will be hosted by Institute for Global Public Policy at Fudan University, LSE-Fudan Research Centre for Global Public Policy, LSE Global South Unit, and the Center for African, Latin America and Caribbean Studies (CALACS) at O.P. Jindal Global University.

Publication

Authors will be given one month to revise their papers according to comments from the workshop and the guest editors. They are then expected to submit papers directly to the online submission system of Global Public Policy and Governance by 1 June 2024. All papers will go through a peer review process organized by the guest editors. If accepted, the papers will be made available online first before they are published in print.

The format of research papers should comply with the style of GPPG (i.e., the APA reference style) and a word limit of 10,000 words. Details are available in this link (this opens in a new tab) .

Reviewers should follow Springer Nature’s and the journal’s more detailed  Peer-Review Policy (this opens in a new tab) .

Important Dates

• Abstract submission: 1 October  2023
• Full paper submission: 1 March 2024
• Workshop: April 2024
• Revised paper submission to the EM system of GPPG: 1 June 2024
• Expected online publication:  September 2024
• Expected hard-copy publication: October 2024

Further Information

For questions regarding this special issue, please contact the guest editors, Dr. Alvaro Mendez ( [email protected] (this opens in a new tab) ) or Karin Costa Vazquez ( [email protected] (this opens in a new tab) ).

Alvaro Mendez

Prof. Alvaro Mendez is the Director of the Global South Unit at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), as well as a Senior Associate Fellow at LSE IDEAS and an Associate Fellow at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy. He also teaches International Relations at both the LSE and Sciences-Po Paris, and is a Foreign Expert and Adjunct Professor at Fudan University in Shanghai, where he teaches a course on China and International Development. Prof. Mendez has published articles in prestigious journals such as Geopolitics , Global Policy , Asia Business and Management , Sustainability , Journal of Business Research , The China Journal , Asia Pacific Business Review , Finance Research Letters , and Foreign Policy Analysis . Additionally, he has authored numerous books, including his latest work (co-authored with Chris Alden) titled China and Latin America Development, Agency and Geopolitics , which was published by Bloomsbury in January 2023.

Karin Costa Vazquez

Prof. Karin Costa Vazquez is the Director of the Center for African, Latin American and Caribbean Studies at O.P. Jindal Global University, scholar at Fudan University and Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Center for China and Globalization. She has advised UN entities and development finance institutions worldwide and led initiatives like the 2022-2025 Strategic Framework of the UN Office for South-South Cooperation and the ABDE 2030 Plan to catalyse US$ 380 billion in investments by 34 development finance institutions for the implementation of the SDGs. Her research lies in the intersection between international cooperation and financing for sustainable development, with a focus on Brazil, China, India, and their new multilateral development banks. Her latest publications include the articles New Asian Development Finance (IDS Bulletin), Brazil and BRICS multilateralism à la carte : from bilateralism to community interest (Global Policy), and Up or out: how China’s decarbonization will redefine trade, investments, and external relations (Turin University).

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Located within the  Development Economics Vice Presidency , the Development Research Group is the World Bank's principal research department. With its cross-cutting expertise on a broad range of topics and countries, the department is one of the most influential centers of development research in the world.

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This blog post is part of a series on the potential role industrial policy can, should, or shouldn’t play in government economic policy in low- and middle-income countries. Also see:

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The State of Development Journals 2024: Quality, Acceptance Rates, Review Times, and What’s New

David mckenzie.

This is the eighth in my annual series of efforts to put together data on development economics journals that is not otherwise publicly available or easy to access (see  2017 ,  2018 ,  2019 ,  2020 , 2021 , 2022 , 2023 for the previous editions). I once again thank all the journal editors and editorial staff who graciously shared their statistics with me.

Journal Quality

The most well-known metric of journal quality is its impact factor . The standard impact factor is the mean number of citations in the last year of papers published in the journal in the past 2 years, while the 5-year is the mean number of cites in the last year of papers published in the last 5. As noted in previous years, the distribution of citations are highly skewed, and while the mean number of citations differs across journals, there is substantial overlap in the distributions – most of the variation in citations is within, rather than across journals. We continue to see growth in these impact factors at many journals. The big news this year is that they have decided that you really don’t need three decimal places any more in the impact factors.  I compliment these stats with RePec’s journal rankings which take into account article downloads and abstract views in addition to citations. 

Table 3 then shows two additional metrics, taken from Scimago , which uses information from the Scopus database. The first is the SJR (SCImago Journal Rank), which is a prestige-weighted citation metric – which works like Google PageRank, giving more weight to citations in sources with a relatively high SJR. I’ve included some of the top general journals in economics for comparison. Scimago also provides an H-index which is the number of papers published by a journal  in any year that were cited at least h times in the reference year – so this captures how many papers continue to be influential but as a result, favors more established journals, and ones that publish more articles, that have a larger body of articles to draw upon. 

How many submissions are received, and what are the chances of getting accepted?

Table 4 shows the number of submissions received each year. See previous years posts for statistics before 2019. The total submissions in the 11 journals tracked is almost 10,000 papers (note I received no data from the Review of Development Economics this year so have excluded it).  Total submissions in these journals are up 7.7% over last year, although not quite at the 2020 peak.

At most journals the number of submissions has either leveled off or fallen since a peak in 2020-21. World Development had the largest 2020 peak when they had a special call for a variety of short papers on COVID-19, but perhaps the combination of people sending off lots of papers during the pandemic and then being a little slower to start new projects has halted the rapid growth somewhat.

·       The newish World Development Perspectives already received 532 submissions last year, more than many long established development journals.

·       The Review of Development Economics has seen very rapid growth in submissions. I only started collecting stats for it last year, but the editors note that in 2015 they received about 450 submissions, and this has now grown to more than 1,500 last year.

Table 5 shows the total number of papers published in each journal. 782 papers were published in 2023, so that’s a lot of development research (even though less than 1 in 10 of the submitted papers and down slightly on the 811 papers published in 2022). I’ve noted in previous years that some of the journals have been able to flexibly increase the number of articles published as their submission numbers have risen, reducing publication lags as well. 

The ratio of the number of papers published to those submitted is approximately the acceptance rate. Of course papers are often published in a different year from when they are submitted, and so journals calculate acceptance rates by trying to match up the timing. Each journal does this in somewhat different ways. Hence Economia-Lacea reports a 0% acceptance rate for 2023 since none of the papers submitted in 2023 have yet been accepted, although some are still under review.  Table 6 shows the acceptance rates at different journals as reported by these journals. Of course the number and quality of submissions varies across journals, and so comparing acceptance rates across journals does not tell you what the chances are of your particular paper getting accepted is at these different journals.  

How long does it take papers to get refereed?

In addition to wanting to publish in a high quality outlet, and having a decent chance of publication, authors also care a lot about how efficient the process is. Table 7 provides data on the review process (see the previous years’ posts for historic data). The first column shows the desk rejection rate, which averages 73%. Column 2 uses the desk rejection rates and acceptance rates to estimate the acceptance rate conditional on you making it past the desk rejection stage. On average, about one in three papers that gets sent to referees gets accepted, with this varying from 12% to 63% across journals.

The remaining columns give some numbers on how long it takes to get a first-round decision. The statistics “Unconditional on going to referees” includes all the desk rejections, which typically don’t take that many days. The average conditional on going to referees is in the 3-5 month range. The last two columns then show that at most journals, almost all papers have a decision within 6 months – so in my opinion, you should feel free to send an enquiry if your paper takes longer than that. 

Do revisions typically get sent back to the referees or handled by the editor?

Another factor that can make a big difference in how long it takes to publish a paper is whether editors send revised papers back to referees, or instead reads the response letter and revision themselves and just makes a decision on this basis. This is something that the AER and AEJ Applied have been trying to do more and more, with only 25% of revisions at the AEJ Applied going back to referees. In my own editing at WBE, I send fewer than 5% of revisions back to referees. This year I asked the different journals what their approaches were. Many do not systematically track this, but offered some approximations:

·       Journal of Development Economics: approximately 60% of revisions go back to referees, although 0% for the short papers (see below)

·       Development Policy Review: only 10% of revisions go back to referees.

·       Journal of Development Effectiveness: 7.7% were sent back to referees

·       Journal of Development Studies: not tracked, but less than 20% go back to referees

·       Journal of African Economies: 52% are sent back to referees

·       Economia: 70% go back to referees.

·       EDCC: does not track this, but first revisions are usually sent back to referees.

·       World Development, World Development Perspectives, WBRO, and WBER do not track this, and results may vary a lot by editor.

Updates on the JDE Short Paper and Registered Report Tracks

The Journal of Development Economics has two other categories of papers that differ from other development journals:

·       The short paper format has proved popular. There were 148 submissions in 2023 (about 8% of total submissions), and 21 short papers were accepted. These papers follow the model of AER Insights, ReStat, etc in which papers are either conditionally accepted or rejected, and so any revisions are minor and are not sent back to referees.

·       The JDE registered reports had 19 stage 1 acceptances in 2023, and 1 stage 2 acceptance, reflecting a lag from COVID when there were not many new submissions. They have a website jdepreresults.org which tracks the stage 1 and stage 2 registered reports, but some of the data was lost when transitioning the website, so if you have a registered report accepted that is not listed there, please let the journal know.

Other Development Journal News

Finally, I asked the journals if they had any other major news or changes to report. Here are what they wanted to share:

·       At EDCC, Prashant Bharadwaj has replaced Marcel Fafchamps as editor. Thanks to Marcel for 10 years at the helm. The journal is one of the few development journals with a submission fee ($50), but offers a fee waiver to referees who have submitted a timely report in the year prior to submission.

·       Other editorial changes are Ganeshan Wignaraja replacing Colin Kirkpatrick as co-editor at Development Policy Review, and Marie Gardner and Ashu Handa taking over from Manny Jimenez at the Journal of Development Effectiveness.

·       The Journal of Development Effectiveness notes they are implementing a set of actions to raise awareness about transparency, ethics and equity in research, and to address power imbalances among HIC-L&MIC research teams. The editors note they are particularly concerned with research involving primary data collection in an L&MIC where there is no author from an institution in that country. For articles submitted to JDEff that fall into this category, they will require the authors to complete a short author reflexivity statement that will be published along with the article. The statement will explain the contribution of each author per Taylor & Francis authorship criteria, which are consistent with the criteria established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Authors will be asked to explain why there is no contributing author from the study location, specifically, whether any team member based in the study location made a ’significant contribution to conception, study design, execution or acquisition of data,’ and if so, why they were not subsequently invited to review the manuscript and take responsibility for its contents. And for work involving randomized controlled trials or interviews with vulnerable groups, authors will also be asked to answer a set of questions about research ethics. Final manuscript acceptance and publication in JDEff will be based on the scientific quality of the work as well as an assessment of whether the work was conducted in an equitable, inclusive and ethical manner.

Finally, thanks again to all the editors for all the time and effort they devote to improving the quality and visibility of development research. As you can see, they have a lot to deal with!

Lead Economist, Development Research Group, World Bank

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Monetary Transmission Through Bank Securities Portfolios

We study the transmission of monetary policy through bank securities portfolios using granular supervisory data on U.S. bank securities, hedging positions, and corporate credit. Banks that experienced larger losses on their securities during the 2022-2023 monetary tightening cycle extended less credit to firms. This spillover effect was stronger for available-for-sale securities, unhedged securities, and banks that must include unrealized gains and losses in their regulatory capital. A structural model, disciplined by our cross-sectional regression estimates, shows that interest rate transmission is stronger the more banks are required to adjust their regulatory capital for unrealized value changes of securities.

The authors have no relevant material relationships to disclose. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

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Foreign Currency Liquidity Risk Management at Japanese Major Banks: Efforts and Enhancement

May 22, 2024 Financial System and Bank Examination Department, Bank of Japan Strategy Development and Management Bureau, Financial Services Agency

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Securing stable foreign currency liquidity is one of the most important issues for Japanese major banks, as it is the basis of the expansion of their overseas businesses. The March 2023 banking turmoil in the United States and Switzerland shed new light on the importance of managing liquidity risk. Against this background, major banks have been enhancing their risk management through foreign currency liquidity stress testing based on more conservative and appropriate stress scenarios, early warning frameworks, and prompt and accurate liquidity data management. The Financial Services Agency and the Bank of Japan have supported these efforts through initiatives including joint surveys. As a result, major banks' resilience to foreign currency liquidity risk has steadily improved. However, there remains room for further enhancement. Going forward, banks are expected to continue their efforts to further enhance their risk management in line with changes in the risk profiles of their overseas businesses and the external environment.

The Bank of Japan Review Series is published by the Bank to explain recent economic and financial topics for a wide range of readers. This report, 2024-E-3, is a translation of the Japanese original, 2024-J-7, published in May 2024.

If you have any comments or questions, please contact Financial System and Bank Examination Department (E-mail : [email protected]).

McKinsey Global Private Markets Review 2024: Private markets in a slower era

At a glance, macroeconomic challenges continued.

McKinsey Global Private Markets Review 2024: Private markets: A slower era

If 2022 was a tale of two halves, with robust fundraising and deal activity in the first six months followed by a slowdown in the second half, then 2023 might be considered a tale of one whole. Macroeconomic headwinds persisted throughout the year, with rising financing costs, and an uncertain growth outlook taking a toll on private markets. Full-year fundraising continued to decline from 2021’s lofty peak, weighed down by the “denominator effect” that persisted in part due to a less active deal market. Managers largely held onto assets to avoid selling in a lower-multiple environment, fueling an activity-dampening cycle in which distribution-starved limited partners (LPs) reined in new commitments.

About the authors

This article is a summary of a larger report, available as a PDF, that is a collaborative effort by Fredrik Dahlqvist , Alastair Green , Paul Maia, Alexandra Nee , David Quigley , Aditya Sanghvi , Connor Mangan, John Spivey, Rahel Schneider, and Brian Vickery , representing views from McKinsey’s Private Equity & Principal Investors Practice.

Performance in most private asset classes remained below historical averages for a second consecutive year. Decade-long tailwinds from low and falling interest rates and consistently expanding multiples seem to be things of the past. As private market managers look to boost performance in this new era of investing, a deeper focus on revenue growth and margin expansion will be needed now more than ever.

Perspectives on a slower era in private markets

Global fundraising contracted.

Fundraising fell 22 percent across private market asset classes globally to just over $1 trillion, as of year-end reported data—the lowest total since 2017. Fundraising in North America, a rare bright spot in 2022, declined in line with global totals, while in Europe, fundraising proved most resilient, falling just 3 percent. In Asia, fundraising fell precipitously and now sits 72 percent below the region’s 2018 peak.

Despite difficult fundraising conditions, headwinds did not affect all strategies or managers equally. Private equity (PE) buyout strategies posted their best fundraising year ever, and larger managers and vehicles also fared well, continuing the prior year’s trend toward greater fundraising concentration.

The numerator effect persisted

Despite a marked recovery in the denominator—the 1,000 largest US retirement funds grew 7 percent in the year ending September 2023, after falling 14 percent the prior year, for example 1 “U.S. retirement plans recover half of 2022 losses amid no-show recession,” Pensions and Investments , February 12, 2024. —many LPs remain overexposed to private markets relative to their target allocations. LPs started 2023 overweight: according to analysis from CEM Benchmarking, average allocations across PE, infrastructure, and real estate were at or above target allocations as of the beginning of the year. And the numerator grew throughout the year, as a lack of exits and rebounding valuations drove net asset values (NAVs) higher. While not all LPs strictly follow asset allocation targets, our analysis in partnership with global private markets firm StepStone Group suggests that an overallocation of just one percentage point can reduce planned commitments by as much as 10 to 12 percent per year for five years or more.

Despite these headwinds, recent surveys indicate that LPs remain broadly committed to private markets. In fact, the majority plan to maintain or increase allocations over the medium to long term.

Investors fled to known names and larger funds

Fundraising concentration reached its highest level in over a decade, as investors continued to shift new commitments in favor of the largest fund managers. The 25 most successful fundraisers collected 41 percent of aggregate commitments to closed-end funds (with the top five managers accounting for nearly half that total). Closed-end fundraising totals may understate the extent of concentration in the industry overall, as the largest managers also tend to be more successful in raising non-institutional capital.

While the largest funds grew even larger—the largest vehicles on record were raised in buyout, real estate, infrastructure, and private debt in 2023—smaller and newer funds struggled. Fewer than 1,700 funds of less than $1 billion were closed during the year, half as many as closed in 2022 and the fewest of any year since 2012. New manager formation also fell to the lowest level since 2012, with just 651 new firms launched in 2023.

Whether recent fundraising concentration and a spate of M&A activity signals the beginning of oft-rumored consolidation in the private markets remains uncertain, as a similar pattern developed in each of the last two fundraising downturns before giving way to renewed entrepreneurialism among general partners (GPs) and commitment diversification among LPs. Compared with how things played out in the last two downturns, perhaps this movie really is different, or perhaps we’re watching a trilogy reusing a familiar plotline.

Dry powder inventory spiked (again)

Private markets assets under management totaled $13.1 trillion as of June 30, 2023, and have grown nearly 20 percent per annum since 2018. Dry powder reserves—the amount of capital committed but not yet deployed—increased to $3.7 trillion, marking the ninth consecutive year of growth. Dry powder inventory—the amount of capital available to GPs expressed as a multiple of annual deployment—increased for the second consecutive year in PE, as new commitments continued to outpace deal activity. Inventory sat at 1.6 years in 2023, up markedly from the 0.9 years recorded at the end of 2021 but still within the historical range. NAV grew as well, largely driven by the reluctance of managers to exit positions and crystallize returns in a depressed multiple environment.

Private equity strategies diverged

Buyout and venture capital, the two largest PE sub-asset classes, charted wildly different courses over the past 18 months. Buyout notched its highest fundraising year ever in 2023, and its performance improved, with funds posting a (still paltry) 5 percent net internal rate of return through September 30. And although buyout deal volumes declined by 19 percent, 2023 was still the third-most-active year on record. In contrast, venture capital (VC) fundraising declined by nearly 60 percent, equaling its lowest total since 2015, and deal volume fell by 36 percent to the lowest level since 2019. VC funds returned –3 percent through September, posting negative returns for seven consecutive quarters. VC was the fastest-growing—as well as the highest-performing—PE strategy by a significant margin from 2010 to 2022, but investors appear to be reevaluating their approach in the current environment.

Private equity entry multiples contracted

PE buyout entry multiples declined by roughly one turn from 11.9 to 11.0 times EBITDA, slightly outpacing the decline in public market multiples (down from 12.1 to 11.3 times EBITDA), through the first nine months of 2023. For nearly a decade leading up to 2022, managers consistently sold assets into a higher-multiple environment than that in which they had bought those assets, providing a substantial performance tailwind for the industry. Nowhere has this been truer than in technology. After experiencing more than eight turns of multiple expansion from 2009 to 2021 (the most of any sector), technology multiples have declined by nearly three turns in the past two years, 50 percent more than in any other sector. Overall, roughly two-thirds of the total return for buyout deals that were entered in 2010 or later and exited in 2021 or before can be attributed to market multiple expansion and leverage. Now, with falling multiples and higher financing costs, revenue growth and margin expansion are taking center stage for GPs.

Real estate receded

Demand uncertainty, slowing rent growth, and elevated financing costs drove cap rates higher and made price discovery challenging, all of which weighed on deal volume, fundraising, and investment performance. Global closed-end fundraising declined 34 percent year over year, and funds returned −4 percent in the first nine months of the year, losing money for the first time since the 2007–08 global financial crisis. Capital shifted away from core and core-plus strategies as investors sought liquidity via redemptions in open-end vehicles, from which net outflows reached their highest level in at least two decades. Opportunistic strategies benefited from this shift, with investors focusing on capital appreciation over income generation in a market where alternative sources of yield have grown more attractive. Rising interest rates widened bid–ask spreads and impaired deal volume across food groups, including in what were formerly hot sectors: multifamily and industrial.

Private debt pays dividends

Debt again proved to be the most resilient private asset class against a turbulent market backdrop. Fundraising declined just 13 percent, largely driven by lower commitments to direct lending strategies, for which a slower PE deal environment has made capital deployment challenging. The asset class also posted the highest returns among all private asset classes through September 30. Many private debt securities are tied to floating rates, which enhance returns in a rising-rate environment. Thus far, managers appear to have successfully navigated the rising incidence of default and distress exhibited across the broader leveraged-lending market. Although direct lending deal volume declined from 2022, private lenders financed an all-time high 59 percent of leveraged buyout transactions last year and are now expanding into additional strategies to drive the next era of growth.

Infrastructure took a detour

After several years of robust growth and strong performance, infrastructure and natural resources fundraising declined by 53 percent to the lowest total since 2013. Supply-side timing is partially to blame: five of the seven largest infrastructure managers closed a flagship vehicle in 2021 or 2022, and none of those five held a final close last year. As in real estate, investors shied away from core and core-plus investments in a higher-yield environment. Yet there are reasons to believe infrastructure’s growth will bounce back. Limited partners (LPs) surveyed by McKinsey remain bullish on their deployment to the asset class, and at least a dozen vehicles targeting more than $10 billion were actively fundraising as of the end of 2023. Multiple recent acquisitions of large infrastructure GPs by global multi-asset-class managers also indicate marketwide conviction in the asset class’s potential.

Private markets still have work to do on diversity

Private markets firms are slowly improving their representation of females (up two percentage points over the prior year) and ethnic and racial minorities (up one percentage point). On some diversity metrics, including entry-level representation of women, private markets now compare favorably with corporate America. Yet broad-based parity remains elusive and too slow in the making. Ethnic, racial, and gender imbalances are particularly stark across more influential investing roles and senior positions. In fact, McKinsey’s research  reveals that at the current pace, it would take several decades for private markets firms to reach gender parity at senior levels. Increasing representation across all levels will require managers to take fresh approaches to hiring, retention, and promotion.

Artificial intelligence generating excitement

The transformative potential of generative AI was perhaps 2023’s hottest topic (beyond Taylor Swift). Private markets players are excited about the potential for the technology to optimize their approach to thesis generation, deal sourcing, investment due diligence, and portfolio performance, among other areas. While the technology is still nascent and few GPs can boast scaled implementations, pilot programs are already in flight across the industry, particularly within portfolio companies. Adoption seems nearly certain to accelerate throughout 2024.

Private markets in a slower era

If private markets investors entered 2023 hoping for a return to the heady days of 2021, they likely left the year disappointed. Many of the headwinds that emerged in the latter half of 2022 persisted throughout the year, pressuring fundraising, dealmaking, and performance. Inflation moderated somewhat over the course of the year but remained stubbornly elevated by recent historical standards. Interest rates started high and rose higher, increasing the cost of financing. A reinvigorated public equity market recovered most of 2022’s losses but did little to resolve the valuation uncertainty private market investors have faced for the past 18 months.

Within private markets, the denominator effect remained in play, despite the public market recovery, as the numerator continued to expand. An activity-dampening cycle emerged: higher cost of capital and lower multiples limited the ability or willingness of general partners (GPs) to exit positions; fewer exits, coupled with continuing capital calls, pushed LP allocations higher, thereby limiting their ability or willingness to make new commitments. These conditions weighed on managers’ ability to fundraise. Based on data reported as of year-end 2023, private markets fundraising fell 22 percent from the prior year to just over $1 trillion, the largest such drop since 2009 (Exhibit 1).

The impact of the fundraising environment was not felt equally among GPs. Continuing a trend that emerged in 2022, and consistent with prior downturns in fundraising, LPs favored larger vehicles and the scaled GPs that typically manage them. Smaller and newer managers struggled, and the number of sub–$1 billion vehicles and new firm launches each declined to its lowest level in more than a decade.

Despite the decline in fundraising, private markets assets under management (AUM) continued to grow, increasing 12 percent to $13.1 trillion as of June 30, 2023. 2023 fundraising was still the sixth-highest annual haul on record, pushing dry powder higher, while the slowdown in deal making limited distributions.

Investment performance across private market asset classes fell short of historical averages. Private equity (PE) got back in the black but generated the lowest annual performance in the past 15 years, excluding 2022. Closed-end real estate produced negative returns for the first time since 2009, as capitalization (cap) rates expanded across sectors and rent growth dissipated in formerly hot sectors, including multifamily and industrial. The performance of infrastructure funds was less than half of its long-term average and even further below the double-digit returns generated in 2021 and 2022. Private debt was the standout performer (if there was one), outperforming all other private asset classes and illustrating the asset class’s countercyclical appeal.

Private equity down but not out

Higher financing costs, lower multiples, and an uncertain macroeconomic environment created a challenging backdrop for private equity managers in 2023. Fundraising declined for the second year in a row, falling 15 percent to $649 billion, as LPs grappled with the denominator effect and a slowdown in distributions. Managers were on the fundraising trail longer to raise this capital: funds that closed in 2023 were open for a record-high average of 20.1 months, notably longer than 18.7 months in 2022 and 14.1 months in 2018. VC and growth equity strategies led the decline, dropping to their lowest level of cumulative capital raised since 2015. Fundraising in Asia fell for the fourth year of the last five, with the greatest decline in China.

Despite the difficult fundraising context, a subset of strategies and managers prevailed. Buyout managers collectively had their best fundraising year on record, raising more than $400 billion. Fundraising in Europe surged by more than 50 percent, resulting in the region’s biggest haul ever. The largest managers raised an outsized share of the total for a second consecutive year, making 2023 the most concentrated fundraising year of the last decade (Exhibit 2).

Despite the drop in aggregate fundraising, PE assets under management increased 8 percent to $8.2 trillion. Only a small part of this growth was performance driven: PE funds produced a net IRR of just 2.5 percent through September 30, 2023. Buyouts and growth equity generated positive returns, while VC lost money. PE performance, dating back to the beginning of 2022, remains negative, highlighting the difficulty of generating attractive investment returns in a higher interest rate and lower multiple environment. As PE managers devise value creation strategies to improve performance, their focus includes ensuring operating efficiency and profitability of their portfolio companies.

Deal activity volume and count fell sharply, by 21 percent and 24 percent, respectively, which continued the slower pace set in the second half of 2022. Sponsors largely opted to hold assets longer rather than lock in underwhelming returns. While higher financing costs and valuation mismatches weighed on overall deal activity, certain types of M&A gained share. Add-on deals, for example, accounted for a record 46 percent of total buyout deal volume last year.

Real estate recedes

For real estate, 2023 was a year of transition, characterized by a litany of new and familiar challenges. Pandemic-driven demand issues continued, while elevated financing costs, expanding cap rates, and valuation uncertainty weighed on commercial real estate deal volumes, fundraising, and investment performance.

Managers faced one of the toughest fundraising environments in many years. Global closed-end fundraising declined 34 percent to $125 billion. While fundraising challenges were widespread, they were not ubiquitous across strategies. Dollars continued to shift to large, multi-asset class platforms, with the top five managers accounting for 37 percent of aggregate closed-end real estate fundraising. In April, the largest real estate fund ever raised closed on a record $30 billion.

Capital shifted away from core and core-plus strategies as investors sought liquidity through redemptions in open-end vehicles and reduced gross contributions to the lowest level since 2009. Opportunistic strategies benefited from this shift, as investors turned their attention toward capital appreciation over income generation in a market where alternative sources of yield have grown more attractive.

In the United States, for instance, open-end funds, as represented by the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries Fund Index—Open-End Equity (NFI-OE), recorded $13 billion in net outflows in 2023, reversing the trend of positive net inflows throughout the 2010s. The negative flows mainly reflected $9 billion in core outflows, with core-plus funds accounting for the remaining outflows, which reversed a 20-year run of net inflows.

As a result, the NAV in US open-end funds fell roughly 16 percent year over year. Meanwhile, global assets under management in closed-end funds reached a new peak of $1.7 trillion as of June 2023, growing 14 percent between June 2022 and June 2023.

Real estate underperformed historical averages in 2023, as previously high-performing multifamily and industrial sectors joined office in producing negative returns caused by slowing demand growth and cap rate expansion. Closed-end funds generated a pooled net IRR of −3.5 percent in the first nine months of 2023, losing money for the first time since the global financial crisis. The lone bright spot among major sectors was hospitality, which—thanks to a rush of postpandemic travel—returned 10.3 percent in 2023. 2 Based on NCREIFs NPI index. Hotels represent 1 percent of total properties in the index. As a whole, the average pooled lifetime net IRRs for closed-end real estate funds from 2011–20 vintages remained around historical levels (9.8 percent).

Global deal volume declined 47 percent in 2023 to reach a ten-year low of $650 billion, driven by widening bid–ask spreads amid valuation uncertainty and higher costs of financing (Exhibit 3). 3 CBRE, Real Capital Analytics Deal flow in the office sector remained depressed, partly as a result of continued uncertainty in the demand for space in a hybrid working world.

During a turbulent year for private markets, private debt was a relative bright spot, topping private markets asset classes in terms of fundraising growth, AUM growth, and performance.

Fundraising for private debt declined just 13 percent year over year, nearly ten percentage points less than the private markets overall. Despite the decline in fundraising, AUM surged 27 percent to $1.7 trillion. And private debt posted the highest investment returns of any private asset class through the first three quarters of 2023.

Private debt’s risk/return characteristics are well suited to the current environment. With interest rates at their highest in more than a decade, current yields in the asset class have grown more attractive on both an absolute and relative basis, particularly if higher rates sustain and put downward pressure on equity returns (Exhibit 4). The built-in security derived from debt’s privileged position in the capital structure, moreover, appeals to investors that are wary of market volatility and valuation uncertainty.

Direct lending continued to be the largest strategy in 2023, with fundraising for the mostly-senior-debt strategy accounting for almost half of the asset class’s total haul (despite declining from the previous year). Separately, mezzanine debt fundraising hit a new high, thanks to the closings of three of the largest funds ever raised in the strategy.

Over the longer term, growth in private debt has largely been driven by institutional investors rotating out of traditional fixed income in favor of private alternatives. Despite this growth in commitments, LPs remain underweight in this asset class relative to their targets. In fact, the allocation gap has only grown wider in recent years, a sharp contrast to other private asset classes, for which LPs’ current allocations exceed their targets on average. According to data from CEM Benchmarking, the private debt allocation gap now stands at 1.4 percent, which means that, in aggregate, investors must commit hundreds of billions in net new capital to the asset class just to reach current targets.

Private debt was not completely immune to the macroeconomic conditions last year, however. Fundraising declined for the second consecutive year and now sits 23 percent below 2021’s peak. Furthermore, though private lenders took share in 2023 from other capital sources, overall deal volumes also declined for the second year in a row. The drop was largely driven by a less active PE deal environment: private debt is predominantly used to finance PE-backed companies, though managers are increasingly diversifying their origination capabilities to include a broad new range of companies and asset types.

Infrastructure and natural resources take a detour

For infrastructure and natural resources fundraising, 2023 was an exceptionally challenging year. Aggregate capital raised declined 53 percent year over year to $82 billion, the lowest annual total since 2013. The size of the drop is particularly surprising in light of infrastructure’s recent momentum. The asset class had set fundraising records in four of the previous five years, and infrastructure is often considered an attractive investment in uncertain markets.

While there is little doubt that the broader fundraising headwinds discussed elsewhere in this report affected infrastructure and natural resources fundraising last year, dynamics specific to the asset class were at play as well. One issue was supply-side timing: nine of the ten largest infrastructure GPs did not close a flagship fund in 2023. Second was the migration of investor dollars away from core and core-plus investments, which have historically accounted for the bulk of infrastructure fundraising, in a higher rate environment.

The asset class had some notable bright spots last year. Fundraising for higher-returning opportunistic strategies more than doubled the prior year’s total (Exhibit 5). AUM grew 18 percent, reaching a new high of $1.5 trillion. Infrastructure funds returned a net IRR of 3.4 percent in 2023; this was below historical averages but still the second-best return among private asset classes. And as was the case in other asset classes, investors concentrated commitments in larger funds and managers in 2023, including in the largest infrastructure fund ever raised.

The outlook for the asset class, moreover, remains positive. Funds targeting a record amount of capital were in the market at year-end, providing a robust foundation for fundraising in 2024 and 2025. A recent spate of infrastructure GP acquisitions signal multi-asset managers’ long-term conviction in the asset class, despite short-term headwinds. Global megatrends like decarbonization and digitization, as well as revolutions in energy and mobility, have spurred new infrastructure investment opportunities around the world, particularly for value-oriented investors that are willing to take on more risk.

Private markets make measured progress in DEI

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) has become an important part of the fundraising, talent, and investing landscape for private market participants. Encouragingly, incremental progress has been made in recent years, including more diverse talent being brought to entry-level positions, investing roles, and investment committees. The scope of DEI metrics provided to institutional investors during fundraising has also increased in recent years: more than half of PE firms now provide data across investing teams, portfolio company boards, and portfolio company management (versus investment team data only). 4 “ The state of diversity in global private markets: 2023 ,” McKinsey, August 22, 2023.

In 2023, McKinsey surveyed 66 global private markets firms that collectively employ more than 60,000 people for the second annual State of diversity in global private markets report. 5 “ The state of diversity in global private markets: 2023 ,” McKinsey, August 22, 2023. The research offers insight into the representation of women and ethnic and racial minorities in private investing as of year-end 2022. In this chapter, we discuss where the numbers stand and how firms can bring a more diverse set of perspectives to the table.

The statistics indicate signs of modest advancement. Overall representation of women in private markets increased two percentage points to 35 percent, and ethnic and racial minorities increased one percentage point to 30 percent (Exhibit 6). Entry-level positions have nearly reached gender parity, with female representation at 48 percent. The share of women holding C-suite roles globally increased 3 percentage points, while the share of people from ethnic and racial minorities in investment committees increased 9 percentage points. There is growing evidence that external hiring is gradually helping close the diversity gap, especially at senior levels. For example, 33 percent of external hires at the managing director level were ethnic or racial minorities, higher than their existing representation level (19 percent).

Yet, the scope of the challenge remains substantial. Women and minorities continue to be underrepresented in senior positions and investing roles. They also experience uneven rates of progress due to lower promotion and higher attrition rates, particularly at smaller firms. Firms are also navigating an increasingly polarized workplace today, with additional scrutiny and a growing number of lawsuits against corporate diversity and inclusion programs, particularly in the US, which threatens to impact the industry’s pace of progress.

Fredrik Dahlqvist is a senior partner in McKinsey’s Stockholm office; Alastair Green  is a senior partner in the Washington, DC, office, where Paul Maia and Alexandra Nee  are partners; David Quigley  is a senior partner in the New York office, where Connor Mangan is an associate partner and Aditya Sanghvi  is a senior partner; Rahel Schneider is an associate partner in the Bay Area office; John Spivey is a partner in the Charlotte office; and Brian Vickery  is a partner in the Boston office.

The authors wish to thank Jonathan Christy, Louis Dufau, Vaibhav Gujral, Graham Healy-Day, Laura Johnson, Ryan Luby, Tripp Norton, Alastair Rami, Henri Torbey, and Alex Wolkomir for their contributions

The authors would also like to thank CEM Benchmarking and the StepStone Group for their partnership in this year's report.

This article was edited by Arshiya Khullar, an editor in the Gurugram office.

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Events, news & press, the decline of bank balance sheet lending.

This paper delves into the profound changes in the traditional model of bank balance sheet intermediation, historically characterized by banks funding informationally sensitive loans to borrowers through the issuance of demandable deposits to savers. This conventional framework has been pivotal in shaping macroprudential policy, guiding monetary policy decisions, and underpinning financial interventions such as bank bailouts. 

This essay is based on the working paper “The Secular Decline of Bank Balance Sheet Lending” by Greg Buchak, Gregor Matvos, Tomasz Piskorski, and Amit Seru.

This paper delves into the profound changes in the traditional model of bank balance sheet intermediation, historically characterized by banks funding informationally sensitive loans to borrowers through the issuance of demandable deposits to savers. This conventional framework has been pivotal in shaping macroprudential policy, guiding monetary policy decisions, and underpinning financial interventions such as bank bailouts. However, our analysis reveals a significant transformation in this model over the last fifty years. Here, we document this decline, explore the underlying economic forces driving these changes, and discuss the implications for the financial system and regulatory practices.

Traditionally, banks operated under a model in which the issuance of deposits directly funded loans. This relationship formed the core of financial intermediation, influencing a broad spectrum of economic activities and policy formulations. Our study starts by highlighting a key trend: the share of “informationally sensitive lending”—where lending decisions are heavily based on specific, nuanced information regarding borrowers—peaked at approximately 60 percent in the early 1970s and has since declined to approximately 35 percent. Instead, there has been a marked shift toward arm’s-length transactions, exemplified by the rise in private credit intermediation through the securitization market. This shift is evidenced by a growth in practices where lenders originate loans only to sell them off as debt securities.

Moreover, the decline in bank balance sheet lending is not confined to loans eligible for securitization by government-sponsored entities (GSEs). There has also been a noticeable decrease in loans that do not qualify for such guarantees. There has been a parallel shift on the side of savers. The proportion of household savings held in the form of bank deposits is almost half what it was, reduced from 22 percent to approximately 13 percent. Savers increasingly gravitate toward alternative financial instruments, such as securitized credit or Treasury securities.

Additionally, there has been a fundamental shift within banks themselves. In 1970, loans accounted for approximately 70 percent of a bank’s asset portfolio. By 2023, this figure shrank to 55 percent. Remarkably, this substantial shift in the composition of bank assets has not been accompanied by dramatic changes in the pricing of deposits, loans, and credit securities. The observed spreads remain largely stable, thereby suggesting that the transformation in the types and structures of assets held by banks has not drastically altered consumers’ borrowing costs.

Our analysis identifies three primary forces that drive these shifts:

• Technological and institutional changes : The last few decades have seen significant advancements in financial technologies and the institutional framework surrounding financial markets. The increase in securitization, supported by automation in loan origination and underwriting and the widespread adoption of the FICO score, has streamlined the process of loan sales and reduced the dependence on traditional, informationally sensitive lending practices. Additionally, the development of government-supported debt securities markets, such as those for agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS), has further diminished the relative importance of bank balance sheet lending.
• Changes in saver preferences : The latter part of the twentieth century witnessed transformative changes in how savers allocate their resources. The emergence of money market funds, the modernization of pension funds, and an increased international appetite for US assets have all tilted preferences away from traditional bank deposits toward more diversified and often higher-yielding debt securities. These changes reflect a broader shift in risk tolerance and investment strategy among savers.
• Regulatory evolution : The regulatory landscape governing the banking sector has undergone substantial reforms. The deregulation trends, including the relaxation of interstate banking restrictions and responses to financial crises such as the global financial crisis, have altered the economic fundamentals of banking. Changes in regulation have impacted the costs and benefits associated with bank balance sheet lending and influenced the strategic decisions of financial institutions in terms of their funding structures and asset compositions.

Using a quantitative model, we decompose these trends to assess their impact on the financial landscape. This model considers alternative savings technologies and different borrowing mechanisms, recognizing that various forms of credit are imperfect substitutes for one another (including the move toward more informationally insensitive lending practices by banks and “shadow” banks, which operate under the originate-to-distribute model).

We discover the following aspects in our analysis. Declines in securitization costs account for changes in aggregate lending quantities. Savers, rather than borrowers, are the main drivers of the size of bank balance sheets. Implicit bank costs and subsidies explain the changing composition of bank balance sheets. Together, these forces explain the reduction in the overall share of informationally sensitive bank lending in credit intermediation.

We conclude by evaluating how these shifts influence the financial sector’s response to macroprudential policies such as capital and liquidity regulation. The transformation in banking and credit intermediation suggests a reduced sensitivity to changes in capital requirements compared to that of earlier decades, underscoring the need for financial regulation to adapt to the evolving dynamics of financial markets.

Our paper contributes to the extensive literature on financial intermediation, linking changes in technology, saver preferences, and regulation to the structural evolution of the banking sector and its implications for financial stability and regulatory policy.

Read the full working paper  here .

Amit Seru is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Steven and Roberta Denning Professor of Finance at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

This essay is part of the Financial Regulation Research Brief Series. Research briefs highlight the policy-relevant features of research on financial systems, including the impact of financial regulations on economic growth, stability, and other factors shaping living standards.

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Operations Principal Specialist / Lead Specialist

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OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISOR ON CLIMATE CHANGE

Washington DC, United States of America  

The IDB Group is a community of diverse, versatile, and hardworking people who come together on a journey to improve lives in Latin America and the Caribbean. Our people find purpose and do what they love in an inclusive, collaborative, agile, and exciting environment.

About this position

We are looking for an experienced leader that will contribute to the research and technical agenda of the Office of the Special Advisor on Climate Change at the IDB Group.

The Office of the Special Advisor on Climate Change is responsible for enhancing coordination and fostering synergies within the IDB Group and with external partners on Climate Change issues in order to achieve greater impact. 

In 2024-25, the Office is working closely with G20, COP, and other Multilateral Development Banks (MDB) task forces on climate, sustainable development, and finance. Its focus will be centered around two main activities: facilitating climate and bio-diversity finance by developing Bank-wide, regional, and international instruments, markets, and policies and coordinating the adoption, development, and reporting of global  investment metrics and metrics of the bank’s impact and results in climate and biodiversity actions, It also aims to enhance responses to climate change and biodiversity loss through global advocacy, thought leadership, and innovation.

The Office is actively involved with initiatives to elevate and advocate with internal and external audiences. It will also support the monitoring of the IDB Group’s programming process and prioritization of analytical work to ensure Climate Change issues are well reflected in its operational and knowledge generation portfolio. The Office also advises the President of the Bank on the respective Action Plans, development impact of IDB Group financed activities and related corporate affairs.

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• Provide advice to the Special Advisor on Climate Change to advance IDB Group’s agenda on climate change.
• Spearhead the technical and analytical agenda in internal and external collaborations around metrics of climate impact and results and support the development of new instruments, markets, and policies to respond to climate change and biodiversity loss.
• Working closely with other relevant IDBG organizational units, champion the generation and collection of Climate Change data for the Office, along with creating technical notes and conducting supplementary research as required.
• Represent the Office when the Special Advisor is otherwise engaged in other commitments and provide critical intellectual and practical support.
• Support the engagement with the Office of the Special Advisor on Climate Change and the IDB Group organizational units working on these areas, including the prioritization of specific climate change issues in the knowledge agenda across the IDB Group.
• Support the establishment of the Office of the Special Advisor on Climate Change in annual planning, implementation, and definition of the Office’s work program, while monitoring the quality of outputs, achievement of long-term goals, and annual objectives and KPI’s for the Office.

What you will need:

• Education : Master’s degree or equivalent in Economics, Quantitative Methods, Finance, or related fields.
• Deep understanding of climate, finance, and data, and will be enthusiastic about tackling challenges across data, investments, markets, and policies to make a practical difference on a large scale today. 
• Understanding of the investment implications of the science around climate change and biodiversity, as well as investors' motivations, market operations, and the potential for government policies and regulations. 
• Familiarity with research and data methodologies, and the ability to use and interpret the results of analytical and statistical software is essential. 
• Strong communication skills, including the adept presentation of data.
• Languages : Proficiency in at least two of the Bank’s official languages (one being English or Spanish).

Key Skills:

• Innovate and Take Risks
• Communicate and Influence
• Focus on Clients
• Learn Continuously
• Collaborate and Share Knowledge

Requirements:

• Citizenship: You are a citizen of one of our 48-member countries . We may offer assistance with relocation and visa applications for you.
• Consanguinity: You have no family members (up to fourth degree of consanguinity and second degree of affinity, including spouse) working at the IDB Group.

Type of Contract and/or Duration:

• International staff contract, 36 months initially, renewable upon mutual agreement. 

What we offer

The IDB group provides benefits that respond to the different needs and moments of an employee’s life. These benefits include: 

• A competitive compensation package, including an annual base salary expressed on a net- of-tax basis
• Leaves and vacations : 24 days of paid time off + 8 personal days + sick leave + gender- neutral parental leave 
• Health Insurance : IDB Group provides employees and eligible dependents with a robust medical benefits program which covers medical, dental, vision, preventive care, and prescription drugs. 
• Pension plan : defined benefit pension plan that provides financial security and support employees in planning for their future. 
• We offer assistance with relocation and visa applications for you and your family, when it applies. 
• Hybrid and flexible work schedules 
• Health and wellbeing :  Access to our Health Services Center which provides preventive care and health education for employees. 
• Development support : We offer tools to boost your professional profile such as mentoring, 1:1 professional counseling, training and learning opportunities, language classes, mobility options, among others. 
• Other perks : Lactation Room, Daycare Center, Gym, Bike Racks, Parking, Spouse Career Program, and others. 

Our culture

At the IDB Group we work so everyone brings their best and authentic selves to work, willing to try new approaches without fear, and where they are accountable and rewarded for their actions. 

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB) are at the center of our organization. We celebrate all dimensions of diversity and encourage women, LGBTQ+ people, persons with disabilities, Afro-descendants, and Indigenous people to apply. 

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job interview process. If you are a qualified candidate with a disability, please e-mail us at [email protected]  to request reasonable accommodation to complete this application. 

Our Human Resources Team reviews carefully every application.  

About the IDB Group

The IDB Group, composed of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), IDB Invest, and the IDB Lab offers flexible financing solutions to its member countries to finance economic and social development through lending and grants to public and private entities in Latin America and the Caribbean. 

The Inter-American Development Bank is devoted to improving lives. Established in 1959, the IDB is a leading source of long-term financing for economic, social and institutional development in Latin America and the Caribbean. The IDB also conducts cutting-edge research and provides policy advice, technical assistance and training to public and private sector clients throughout the region. 

Follow us: 

https://www.linkedin.com/company/inter-american-development-bank/ 

https://www.facebook.com/IADB.org 

https://twitter.com/the_IDB 

• External Contact Email: [email protected]
• Job Field: Sector

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Post Date: May 15, 2024