Session 11: Financing for Development: What Comes next - Climate Finance

Commodity prices have recovered their 2020 losses and, in most cases, are now above pre-pandemic levels (Figure 1). The pace of Chinese growth since 2020 and the economic recovery that has accompanied vaccine rollouts in advanced companies are seen as driving demand upward, while supply restrictions for some items—oil, copper, and some food products—have favored their upward adjustment. Some analysts have started to speak of the possibility of a new commodity price ‘super-cycle’ aft ...

The Policy Brief ‘Pandemic, Preparedness, Morocco, and Africa’ by Uri Dadush provoked a personal reaction: Morocco may never be crowned football’s world champions, alas, but which nation, besides China, New Zealand, Israel, Japan, Denmark, Vietnam, organized its anti-COVID-19 offensive more digitally and in a more modern way than the Kingdom? Morocco’s bureaucracy is at times suffocating and unpleasant, its public hospital system stressed and underfunded. But today I can vouch for a ...

Joe Biden’s victory in the U.S. elections was widely anticipated, and much of what has happened since he took office on January 21 has conformed to his election promise. The progress he helped steer in vaccinations and repairing the pandemic’s economic damage is especially impressive. However, the first 100 days of his term have also seen major unexpected developments. Three of these surprises have both major implications for the U.S. economic outlook, and global repercussions. The ...

Leonardo Da Vinci’s mechanical knight was a humanoid automaton, designed and possibly constructed by da Vinci around 1495. When a version of the mechanical knight was brought into existence several hundred years later, it could stand, sit, raise its visor, and independently maneuver its arms, operated by a series of pulleys and cables. Today, of course, robots have escaped da Vinci’s fantasies. Today they land on Mars, help nurses treat COVID-19 patients, and slave in car manufactur ...