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Financial Intermediary Funds (FIFs) are a type of trust fund that provide large-scale funding for broad, coordinated interventions that are typically focused on specific themes (see section 5) and aimed at achieving Global Public Goods (GPGs). FIFs provide the global development community with multilateral platforms that are independently governed (see section 3) and support multiple implementing entities. FIFs add unique value and strength to the development finance toolkit – especially when there is a global call for collective action for a GPG requiring large-scale additional pooled funds; closely coordinated decision-making; joint implementation at scale across a significant number of multilateral organisations, when no existing instrument can fulfil these functions (World Bank, 2019a).

In the development field, technical assistance (TA) broadly refers to support for a specific project or country programme in the form of technical advice, research and data sharing, and skills training, among other activities. As a result, TA may be more valuable as a development tool than the amount of funding received. The primary areas of focus for TA include developing a project pipeline, de-risking investments, and assisting TA beneficiaries in their efforts to improve business standards, as well as supporting policy reforms by developing country. Because TA recipients may face a variety of issues, effective TA programmes can take many forms. TA programmes must be established to address beneficiaries’ primary concerns. The goal for both TA recipients and donors should be to determine the main objective of the TA and to select from a variety of technical adviser, taking into account the limitations and enabling conditions for each approach (Nastase et al., 2020). Some useful principles (or good practices) when designing and implementing TA (through in-house or external contracting) include: • Importance of local ownership: • Partnerships and inclusivity: • Effectiveness: • Value-for-money (VFM): TA can be delivered in-house or by contracting out TA to other firms or suppliers. However, each approach has certain merits (VFM and other factors) and shortcomings. There is a very limited evidence base regarding an explicit discussion of the merits of in-house vs commissioned TA programming. Much of the available evidence simply describes TA programme elements – rather than the VFM behind business cases for in-house or contracted TA design and delivery.

Compared to smaller or local NGOs, international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) have more influence or “voice” with decision-makers, funding agencies, and policymakers. As a result, INGOs are often better positioned to impact both domestic and international policy (Kreienkamp, 2017; Cooper, 2018; Morton, n.d.).This rapid review therefore seeks to find out the strengths and weaknesses of INGOs in delivering development and other outcomes?INGOs offer local CSOs valuable capacity-building opportunities as well as exposure to a broader range of expertise and development approaches. Many local CSOs see INGOs as a well-established and important part of the development industry. They collaborate with INGOs on funding or partnership arrangements, as well as non-funding collaborative approaches like knowledge and practice networks, or policy dialogue with governments, donors, or the private sector (Morton, n.d.; Jayawickrama and McCullagh, 2009; Green, 2015). Nonetheless, despite the unique contributions made by INGOs (and their peculiar characteristics that enable them to do so), these organisations have limitations that prevent them from reaching their full potential (Green, 2017; Jayawickrama and McCullagh, 2009; Cooper, 2018; Altahir, 2013).These include accountability,difficult working environment and coordination challenges among others explained in this report.Although this rapid evidence review has identified some key strengths and weaknesses of INGOs (i.e., in relation to their development or humanitarian work), many of the important findings are linked to a few relevant reports. Overall, there is a limited evidence base on the topic – since the literature rarely provides systematic and explicit documentation of the strengths/weaknesses of INGOs. Nonetheless, there is a voluminous literature (mostly project reports) on the works of individual INGOs.

Donors and civil society organisations (CSOs) have a shared interest in having an effective way of funding CSO projects or programmes – as well as an efficient and transparent process for awarding grants. CSOs that are looking for development financing generally prefer less bureaucracy from donors, simpler rules, and a shorter wait between the date they apply for funding and when they actually obtain their contract and payment. Many CSOs also often emphasise the importance of fair, transparent procedures providing opportunities to a wide variety of CSOs via a suitable mix of funding modalities (Webb et al., 2020; CONCORDE, 2020; FCDO, 2022; Wieners, 2022; Verbrugge and Huyse, 2018).

The growing scope, frequency, and complexity of forced displacement, both inside and outside of countries, has pushed donors and other development groups to rethink their approaches to humanitarian crises, particularly on refugee response. Financial inclusion is widely regarded as a particularly critical tool that development organisations can employ to mitigate the catastrophic impact of humanitarian crises on refugees. Financial inclusion would provide a wide range of financial products – such as savings, remittances, loans, and insurance – to both refugees and citizens of host countries, which are critical for disadvantaged populations seeking to mitigate shocks, acquire assets, and support local economic development. Changes in how humanitarian aid is distributed are opening the path for greater financial inclusion. Donors and humanitarian organisations are shifting away from emergency cash transfers and toward digital payments via electronic cards. This opens new opportunities to connect refugees and displaced people to a bigger pool of financial services. This rapid literature review summarises the available evidence on toolkits that assist the response by humanitarian and development agencies to financial inclusion of refugees. In addition to the documents defined explicitly as “toolkits”, it also includes reports and online articles which contain useful guidance, since there were few “toolkits” available. Generally, there is lack of resources that directly address the query, i.e., “financial inclusion” in a “refugee response” context. Although there is a growing literature and evidence on the financial inclusion theme, much of it does not directly relate to refugees. Furthermore, most guidance notes and toolkits prepared for refugee response by humanitarian/development agencies do not directly and explicitly deal with financial inclusion, but rather focus on operational and programming issues of wider relief responses. The review is presented as an annotated bibliography format and includes toolkits, guidance notes, technical reports, and online articles by humanitarian and international development agencies.

Restrictions on the banking sector are having a growing adverse impact on the flow of funds to humanitarian agencies and assisting communities affected by humanitarian crises has also become much more difficult and costly. Delays, refusals of transactions by financial institutions and outright bank account closures worsen humanitarian crises by delaying aid distribution response times. The inability to channel funds and critical financial services into countries in humanitarian crisis prevents life-saving humanitarian assistance from reaching those who need it most. The absence of legal transfer channels means the financing vacuum is often filled by illicit means, which can facilitate the spread of crime and corruption (ODI, 2021). Humanitarian organisations have turned to a variety of transaction channels due to disruptions in legitimate transfer mechanisms. Without these alternative money transfer channels humanitarian organisations have been unable to run some parts of their programming. These alternatives means of obtaining funds requires humanitarian organisations to enter into less regulated financial agreements that are not subject to international standards.

This rapid literature review examines evidence on interventions have been used to create green jobs in developing countries. The ‘green jobs’ concept does not have a singular and universally accepted definition. Many development organisations have come up with their own definitions, however all definitions share both an “environmental” and “decent jobs” component. Green job growth has been mostly documented in developed countries and some rapidly growing middle-income countries. However, it is becoming clearer that a green economy can create more and better jobs in all parts of the world (including the poorer developing countries) – and that these jobs can be ‘decent’. There are, however, some difficulties. Some new (green) jobs created in the food, agriculture, and recycling sectors (particularly in developing countries) can hardly be considered ‘decent’ – i.e., due to their poor labour standards. In some cases, climate change is also having a negative impact on jobs. Donors have a crucial role to play in supporting and financing green jobs initiatives and ‘green employment’ across developing countries – given the inadequate investment in the sector, growing unemployment issues and their unique vulnerability to climate change. Nevertheless, the ‘green jobs’ sector – thus far – has only been able to receive limited financial assistance from donors. Lack of focus and funding by donors and development agencies not only stymies the creation of green jobs in developing countries, but it can also result in the loss of many existing jobs and livelihoods, particularly in agriculture, because of climate change. Furthermore, the funding for most green jobs programmes by donors usually tends to be project-based, which fails to be part of a larger strategy to promote sustainable development – thus, limiting its impact. However, it is worth noting that there is relatively limited donor programming on ‘green jobs’ – i.e., most donor funded jobs creation programmes are not explicitly ‘green’. Another poignant observation is the general lack of proper programme evaluation, especially independent evaluation, on donor interventions around ‘green jobs’ (which are usually small projects). As such, there is a lack of good evidence base.

Generally, policymakers and tax analysts (as well as donors concerned about gender equity) have not made proper consideration about how tax policies and tax reforms can interact with gendered cultural norms in developing countries. However, there are worries that tax systems are biased against women and that recent tax reforms may increase the incidence of taxes on women and other underprivileged groups – while, at the same time, failing to garner sufficient tax revenue to fund social programmes necessary to enhance their lives. Since women in developing countries are particularly vulnerable to poverty, a comprehensive and rigorous assessment of tax systems (e.g., existing tax laws, tax administrations and new tax reforms) is needed to understand how they are uniquely affected. Gender-responsive tax programming by donors (and developing-country governments) requires dedication to assess the gender impact of tax policy and tax administration – i.e., who benefits and who is losing from existing tax arrangements or proposed reforms. Although there is growing evidence in the academic literature about the gender dimension of tax, there is still very limited programming by donors on tax policy and tax administration with an explicit focus on gender. Similarly, rarely do donor-funded programmes targeting gendered inequities and empowerment of women incorporate a clear tax agenda. However, there is some evidence that this trend is changing. Some recent regional and country programmes on DRM (e.g., on tax administration, tax policy, tax research, etc.), as well as business and investment climate improvement programmes, are incorporating explicit gender targets into their tax programme components. Some of these regional and country programmes are briefly discussed in the review (with more information on these provided in Sections 4 and 5).

This paper provides new empirical evidence on the relative productivity disadvantage of female-owned firms compared with male-owned firms in a developing country setting. We rely on a large panel of manufacturing firms based on an annual census run by the Central Statistical Agency of Ethiopia. Our preferred estimation shows a 12% difference in levels of total factor productivity between female- and male-owned firms. Drawing on novel quantile approaches to formally compare productivity distributions, we also dig deeper into some of the potential mechanisms underlying this gender-based firm productivity gap. Our findings suggest that various forces are at work. Most female-owned firms seem to concentrate in certain less productive subsectors, and only very few succeed in standing out. Moreover, lower productivity of female-owned firms is shown to relate to a combination of observed firm characteristics and unobserved structural factors that varies according to a firm’s position in the overall productivity distribution.

This chapter studies the development of securities markets in West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU). The size of transactions traded is growing but deals in government securities continue to dominate the market. Market development (especially in secondary segment) is partly hindered by excess liquidity, lack of diversified investor base and investment strategies of market actors. To ensure fiscal discipline and macroeconomic stability, WAEMU has introduced a set of convergence criteria. Inflation and debt-ceiling criteria are met by most members, whereas other targets (fiscal balance, wage bill, government capital expenditure, current account balance and tax revenue) prove difficult to attain.

Summary The article investigates whether differences in public sector management quality affect the link between public debt and economic growth in developing countries. For this purpose, we primarily use the World Bank's institutional indices of public sector management (PSM). Using PSM thresholds, we split our panel into country clusters and make comparisons. Our linear baseline regressions reveal a significant negative relationship between public debt and growth. The various robustness exercises that we perform also confirm these results. When we dissect our data set into “weak” and “strong” county clusters using public sector management scores, however, we find different results. While public debt still displayed a negative relationship with growth in countries with “weak” public sector management quality, it generally displayed a positive relationship in the latter group. The tests for non-linearity shows evidence of an “inverse-U”-shape relationship between public debt and economic growth. However, we fail to see a similar significant relationship on country clusters that account for PSM quality. Yet, countries with well-managed public sectors demonstrate a higher public debt sustainability threshold. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Currency crises, generally defined as rapid depreciation of a local currency or loss of foreign exchange reserves, are common incidents in modern monetary systems. Due to their repeated occurrence and severity, they have earned wide coverage by both theoretical and empirical literature. However, unlike advanced and emerging economies, currency crises in low-income countries have not received due attention. This paper uses the signals approach developed by Kaminsky et al. (1998) and assesses currency crisis in Ethiopia over the time frame January 1970 to December 2008. Using the Exchange Market Pressure Index (EMPI), we identify three currency crisis episodes, Oct. 1992 - Sep. 1993; Mar. – Jul. 1999 and Oct. – Dec. 2008. This timing shows the importance of both local and international dynamics in determining currency crises. The crisis periods coincide with the liberalization following the fall of Ethiopian socialism, the Ethio-Eritrean border conflict, and the zenith of the global financial crisis, respectively. More macro-economic indicators picked up the first crisis in a 24 month signalling window, compared to the latter two. Three categories of indicators were used: current account, capital account and domestic financial sector. None of the capital account indicators were significant based on the noise-to-signal ratio rule. One possible explanation for this might be the weak integration of the Ethiopian economy with global capital markets.

Purpose – The study of the link between debt and growth has been full of debates, both in theory and empirics. However, there is a growing consensus that the relationship is sensitive to the level of debt. The purpose of this paper is to address the question of non-linearity in the long-term relationship between public debt and economic growth. Specifically, the author set out to test if there exists an established “laffer curve” type relationship, where debt contributes to economic growth up to a certain point (maximal threshold) and then starts to have a negative effect on growth afterwards. Design/methodology/approach – To carry out the tests, the author has used a methodology that delivers a superior test of inverse U-shapes (Lind and Mehlum, 2010), in addition to the traditional test based on a regression with a quadratic specification. Findings – The results in the paper present evidence of a bell-shaped relationship between economic growth and total public debt in a panel of low-income Sub-Saharan African economies. This supports the hypothesis that debt has some positive contribution to economic growth in low-income countries, albeit up to a point. Practical implications – The overall result supports the claim that public debt may start to be a drag on economic growth if it goes on increasing beyond the level where it would be sustainable. Originality/value – This paper leads the way by implementing a robust test of non-linearity (“inverse-U” test) to the analyses the debt-growth nexus and the laffer curve in Sub-Saharan Africa.