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The U.N. General Assembly is underway this week, and the global development community has descended upon New York en masse. Impact bonds are just one example of outcome-based financing, where private investors provide upfront capital, repaid conditional on the achievement of pre-determined metrics. Although evidence is sparse on the relative merits of this mechanism, millions of dollars are being invested in their design and implementation.

China has become a major financier to the world. Last year its outward direct investment (ODI) totaled $170 billion and the overseas lending from its two policy banks added another $100 billion. One aspect of the overseas financing is China’s "One Belt, One Road" (OBOR) initiative. This is President Xi Jinping’s idea of supporting infrastructure development in countries west and south of China. Beijing is hosting a belt-and-road summit on May 14 and 15, which 28 heads of state will attend. There are two main types of capital outflow that are relevant for OBOR: ODI, and lending by China’s policy banks, China Development Bank (CDB) and the Export-Import Bank of China (EXIM). The top 10 destinations of ODI were: the Cayman Islands, the Virgin Islands, the United States, Singapore, Australia, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Russia, Canada, and Indonesia. Of these, only Russia and Indonesia are along the belt and road. China is a very significant funder of infrastructure in the developing world, but it is happening everywhere, not just along the belt and road.

The Brookings Institution published its new study entitled "Change of pace: Accelerations and advances during the Millennium Development Goal era". The paper examines which trajectories changed, for better or worse between 2000 and 2015. The three key findings of the study are the following: firstly, at least 21 million extra lives were saved due to accelerated progress. During the 2000s there were major accelerations in rates of progress. Secondly, acceleration varied considerably across issues and geographies. Positive changes were concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa and low-income countries, as classified by the World Bank in 2000. Thirdly, low-income country acceleration versus middle-income country gains shows a major difference in trends among low-income countries (LICs) versus middle-income countries (MICs). LICs indicated more acceleration but smaller relative gains, while MICs tended to see larger relative gains but less acceleration.

Ahead of the World Bank's annual meeting, president Jim Yong Kim will set out his vision for ending extreme poverty by 2030 and boosting shared prosperity. He will speak about the links between growth, poverty and inequality, the changing face of poverty, and the role the World Bank Group. Following an introduction by the host of the meeting, Strobe Talbott, Jim Yong Kim will deliver his speech, then will engage in a conversation with Kemal Dervi?, vice president and director for the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings. Questions and answers will be fielded at the conclusion.

Financial inclusion can be achieved via traditional banking offerings, but also through digital financial services such as mobile money, among other innovative approaches. The Brookings Financial and Digital Inclu­sion Project (FDIP) Report and Scorecard seeks to help answer a set of fundamental questions about today’s global financial inclusion efforts. To answer these questions, Brookings experts John D. Villasenor, Darrell M. West, and Robin J. Lewis analyzed finan­cial inclusion in 21 geographically, economically, and politically diverse countries. This year’s report and scorecard is the first of a series of annual reports examining financial inclusion activities and assessing usage of financial services in selected countries around the world.

The financing gap continues to be one of the major obstacles to global development efforts. For the global education agenda, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) estimates the current need at $42 billion annually through 2015. Even with donors’ contributions, the yearly gap remains $38 billion. To help tackle this challenge, the United Nations General Assembly established the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing to support countries in mobilizing more resources and to advise them on how to spend these resources more effectively. The Arab world could also play an important role as a partner in finding more sustainable solutions to addressing the global education financing gap.

The Brookings-Zaostreno “World Forum on Governance” was held in Prague on April 9 – 11, 2014. There were sessions on prosecutorial initiatives and the role of judges, police and prosecutors in countering corruption and a consideration of transnational instruments such as treaties, courts and international organizations. But there were also sessions on fighting corruption with social media and the relationship between government reform efforts and corruption control. In addition there was an emphasis on the corporate side and on how to include the private sector in the fight against corruption. This year’s Forum had a broad perspective to include government reform as a means of getting at the underlying incentive structures in public sector corruption.