Fernando Straface (Director of the CIG), Pepe Zhang (Senior Fellow of the CIG) and Otaviano Canuto (Senior Fellow at the Policy Center for the New South and Nonresident Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institution) analyze the present and future of the multilateral development bank (MDB) system in a new publication of the CEBRI-Journal.
In a context of international system fragmentation and profound geoeconomic transformations, the authors propose rethinking the relationship between traditional MDBs—such as the World Bank—and emerging ones—such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the New Development Bank (NDB)—not as a binary competition, but as an intertwined path of convergence, divergence, cooperation, and manageable competition.
The publication, titled “From Bretton Woods to Braided Path: Navigating MDB Dynamics Amid Global Shifts”, identifies four major structural trends that are reshaping the multilateral ecosystem:
Fragmentation of the international development sector
Emergence of new geoeconomic poles
Rise of nationalism in donor countries
Intensification of technical-political tension in decision-making
The article argues that, faced with common challenges such as low mobilization of private capital and pressure to innovate, multinational development banks (MDBs)—both new and traditional—can reinforce each other. It also highlights the need for more established banks to renew their political value proposition, integrating geopolitical objectives alongside development goals in an increasingly interconnected global context.
Read the full article here:
From Bretton Woods to Braided Path: Navigating MDB Dynamics Amid Global Shifts
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