DFI was commissioned by Save the Children UK to provide research into current and projected trends in social protection expenditure which contributed to the newly launched report A Chance to Grow. With the current global economic crisis hitting the poorest countries hardest, this report finds that promoting and strengthening social protection programmes can reduce child hunger and malnutrition, save lives and promote economic opportunities, and proposes a series of evidence-based recommendations to achieve this goal.

DFI joined the World Bank and IMF/AFRITAC Ouest in Nouakchott to conduct an MTDS mission. The mission trained the Debt Committee in the MTDS methodology, and participants drafted the MTDS report with the consultants’ assistance. Results were presented to the national public debt committee as well as to the Ministers for Finance and for Economic Affairs and Development during a closing session attended by World Bank and IMF resident representatives.

In the last 8 months, Development Finance International has expanded its advocacy work on debt, aid and innovative financing, increased its in-country capacity-building support on debt management (through an enhanced partnership with the World Bank, read more...

DFI is leading the production of a Handbook on Innovative Financing for Development for the Commonwealth Secretariat. The Handbook, due to be published in Q3 2012, uses a unique set of Principles to help developing countries to identify and assess a diverse range of new instruments in order to plug the huge development financing gaps necessary to meet their MDGs, address environmental challenges, and respond to exogenous shocks. It also raises awareness of innovative instruments presently under discussion. The Handbook is being targeted primarily at decision makers in developing countries.

A joint DFI and World Bank mission visited Tajikistan. The mission took place at the request of the Ministry of Finance, and focused on providing technical assistance in debt management strategy formulation. The mission shared the Bank-Fund framework for Medium-Term Debt Management Strategy (MTDS) development, and jointly with a government team, applied it to Tajikistan. In the process, the team provided training on basic cost-risk analysis, data preparation, and preparation of a debt management strategy document.

DFI presented the main findings of the client assessment of the African Development Bank to its Governors’ Dialogue on the long-term strategy, and to a consultative conference of CSOs, at the Annual Meetings of the African Development Bank in Arusha, Tanzania. The report will be presented formally to the AfDB Board, and published in time for the African Development Fund replenishment dialogue in Q3.

The European Parliament adopted by strong majority proposals for an EU-wide financial transaction tax. Following the recent French legislation for a unilateral FTT to be implemented in France from August 2012, Parliament approved the tax rates proposed by the Commission, 0.1 per cent for transactions of shares and bonds, and 0.01 per cent for derivatives. The adopted text also confirms that the additional revenue generated will also be used 'for specific policy purposes, such as development aid and fighting climate change', a step in the right direction for LICs' ministers who have been campaigning for an FTT and other innovative financing mechanisms.

The report, The State of Debt: Putting an end to 30 years of debt crisis, investigates the external debts of both governments and the private sector in low and lower middle income countries. The report’s author, Tim Jones said, “The rich world is currently gripped by a debt crisis caused primarily by reckless lending and borrowing between private banks. Worryingly, this kind of dangerous debt is now on the increase in impoverished countries, at a time when world leaders think the problem of Third World Debt has been solved". Perhaps the report’s most startling finding is that three of the countries that had some of their debt cancelled in response to the global Jubilee campaign – Mozambique, Ethiopia and Niger – are all soon expected to be spending as much on foreign debt payments as they were before receiving debt relief.

DFI supplied a resource person for the UN Development Cooperation Forum symposium in Brisbane. Participants discussed the need for the post-2015 Development Agenda to be based on economically, socially and environmentally sustainable development, and what this would mean for delivery of aid, financing and partnership mechanisms, mutual accountability and the international architecture.

DFI has been commissioned to support the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in building a Mutual Accountability Framework to hold the government and its development partners responsible for delivery of aid results, after the international conference in Tokyo scheduled for July 2012.