Overseas Development Institute

Small Island Developing States (SIDS) can look rich on paper while remaining highly vulnerable to shocks. As the OECD reviews the rules governing graduation from official development assistance (ODA), income per capita should not be the only test: countries’ structural vulnerability must count too.

Wednesday, 14 October 2026 | 14:00 – 15:30 ICT (GMT+7) Description When developing countries enter International Monetary Fund (IMF) programmes during debt crises, the priority is immediate fiscal discipline: curbing inflation, rebuilding foreign exchange reserves and restoring balance-of-payments viability. Yet macroeconomic stabilisation alone is not recovery.

“The United Nations exists because power requires rules – and humanity needs a place where power answers to principle.” As world leaders gathered at the UN this week, talk of diplomacy shared the stage with threats of annihilation. The week brought into focus the world António Guterres’ successor will inherit: one facing political, economic, climate and technological crises the UN’s founding figures could not possibly have anticipated.

For decades, many African countries have struggled with a combination of low domestic public spending, high out-of-pocket payments by households and substantial reliance on development assistance to finance their health systems. Now, as debt service costs rise and external financing for health comes under pressure, governments must avoid the temptation to shift costs onto households. African health ministers recognise the urgency of this challenge.

Advisory groups are common across a humanitarian sector that is talking (if not always walking) the talk of meaningful participation. Many UN agencies, donor governments and INGOs now routinely seek advice from panels of people with lived experience. But, as we are learning first-hand, the initial act of setting up the group is the easy part. The process of building the foundations needed to make these groups meaningful is the hard part. What does it take to make an advisory group count?

This Week in Macroeconomics – Issue 75 Welcome to the latest issue of This Week in Macroeconomics. This week, Research Fellow Iván Weigandi examines why the apparent resilience of the global economy to the Iran war energy shock may be temporary, as depleted oil inventories, tighter financing conditions and higher import bills create a growing liquidity squeeze for low-income energy importers.

In 2016, one of us (Herman) asked what would change if multilateral development banks (MDBs) and development finance institutions (DFIs) were analysed as financial intermediaries rather than only as public development agencies. Drawing on 21 senior-level interviews, the study argued that balance-sheet, rating, shareholder and risk constraints shape behaviour alongside development mandates, and proposed mechanisms including risk transfer, securitisation and independent intermediation.

Explore similar content A 20-year empirical study shows every €1 in EU development cooperation to Africa is associated with €6.80 in European goods and services exports. Discover how investing in partner-country development actively strengthens European competitiveness and trade. - Working paper As the European Commission shapes its next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), this report analyses the economic impact of EU aid.

Opposition to climate action has been, and is increasingly, mainstream, organised, and well-funded – and this is deeply intertwined with rollbacks on gender equality. Feminist and climate movements must be ready to meet the challenge. This was one of the clearest messages to emerge at a workshop convened by ODI Global, the International Women’s Development Agency (IWDA) and Women’s Environmental Leadership Australia (WELA) at Women Deliver in April.

In the coming months, the European Parliament (EP) will shape key debates on women's rights and gender equality, including health inequalities, challenges posed by the digital age (e.g. AI-generated content and social media), gender budgeting, and the role Europe plays in advancing gender equality globally. As the far-right gains ground, including within the FEMM Committee, the nature of these policy debates has become more politicised and contested.