Global Policy Forum Europe

What's New

The private turn: Does the World Bank still function as a development bank?

The Annual Meetings also offer an opportunity to refocus the World Bank and direct it towards people and places where commercial banks do not operate. There is no shortage of banks on this planet that cater for wealthy countries and people. What is needed is a bank that caters for those left behind by other financial institutions.

Multiblog summary photo

Cutting the cost of capital: Four global views on what the IMF and World Bank should do

What should the IMF and World Bank do to lower the cost of development finance? Ahead of their 2026 Annual Meetings in Bangkok, we bring together perspectives from Africa, Latin America, India and Europe, with proposals for making finance more affordable, addressing unsustainable debt and supporting the clean energy transition.

WB2026 Side Event Flyer: Rising Cost of Development Finance: How the Bretton Woods Institutions Can Deliver Development

Side event at the 2026 Annual Meetings - Rising cost of development finance: How the Bretton Woods Institutions can deliver development

13.10.2026

Join us to discuss how the World Bank, IMF and other multilateral development banks can make financing more affordable, ease debt distress and support sustainable development and a just energy transition in the Global South.

Side Event at the 12th Session of the OEIGWG on TNCs and OBEs flyer

Side event at the UN business and human rights treaty negotiations: Priorities, red lines and pathways to convergence

13.10.2026

More than a decade after the establishment of the Open-ended Intergovernmental Working Group (OEIGWG) on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights, negotiations have reached a decisive point.

The insights of legal experts and the intersessional consultations have contributed to a deeper understanding of the current draft text and different States’ proposals. The upcoming period presents an opportunity to identify pathways towards greater convergence, while safeguarding the mandate to elaborate a legally binding instrument and ensuring that it [...]

Our issue areas

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT &
HUMAN RIGHTS

DEVELOPMENT FINANCE &
TAX JUSTICE

UNITED NATIONS &
MULTILATERALISM

CORPORATE INFLUENCE
& ACCOUNTABILITY

Publications

Financing development for a beyond 2030 agenda report cover

Financing development for a beyond 2030 agenda: Road-to-2030 series

The debate over a global development agenda beyond 2030 has begun. One lesson should shape it from the outset: Ambitious goals are meaningless without the means to achieve them.

The 2030 Agenda was underfunded from the beginning: The financial framework the international community could agree on were never sufficient to make the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) achievable. The promised "billions to trillions" model - assuming that a few billion in public finance would mobilise trillions in private investment - never mobilised private capital at anywhere near the scale required.

Ten years [...]

Foto Jens Martens Veranstaltung

The global sustainability agenda on the defensive: Options for a Beyond 2030 Agenda

This briefing analyses the political and structural causes behind the lack of progress in implementing the SDGs and discusses different options for an effective “Beyond 2030 Agenda”, from questions of development financing and international cooperation to a fundamental debate about the current understanding of development policy. It is the final publication by our former director Jens Martens, who passed away in May 2026. We publish it in grateful memory of his longstanding commitment to global justice and sustainable development.

Pilot in Burkina Faso for MenAfriVac immunization campaign.

Global health in crisis: Six theses on the role of private actors

Global health faces a profound structural crisis as public funding cuts and rising inequalities threaten the human right to health, leaving 4.5 billion people without basic services. Many now see an opportunity to bring in private actors to close the funding gap, with little critical scrutiny. Against this backdrop, Brot für die Welt, Global Policy Forum Europe and Misereor have outlined six theses on the role of private actors in global health, offering clear, actionable recommendations for the German government.

The 2026 Forum on Financing for Development: Progress or paralysis?

This briefing assesses the outcomes of the 2026 UN Financing for Development Forum, examining whether it delivered meaningful progress on implementing the Sevilla commitments or reflected broader paralysis in global economic governance. It finds that the forum largely failed to advance implementation, with weak outcomes, misplaced priorities in the agenda, and growing divergence among Member States limiting progress.

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