6/ Why not shift to portfolio derisking? Because MDBs would lose:
- Preferred creditor status on their sovereign loans
- Top credit ratings
- Control over development goals
Ang there's little shareholder consensus or expert support for such a transformation.

3/ We ask: why? And argue they face a trilemma:
🔺Scale up external finance
🔺Derisk private finance
🔺Preserve their traditional business model
Only 2 of these 3 can be achieved at once.

2/ But a decade later, MDBs have mobilised little private capital. With most of it directed toward middle income countries, neglecting those who need it most.

Save the date! We’re hosting Prof. @alimeghji.bsky.social for a workshop on decolonising the academy: "Decolonisation or Diversion? Resisting Empire in the Academy"
🗓 May 15, 2025
🕙 10:00–11:30 | UFO T1 Aud B
🔗 Register: event.ugent.be/registration...

Grateful for #ISA2025 -presented on the EIB in Africa (available here: www.tandfonline.com/toc/gpre20/2...). Amid Chicago's windy charm & broader attacks on academic freedom, we silently disrupted the president’s address, urging democratization & recognition of scholasticide and genocide.

Excited to be at #ISA2025 again to catch up with so many colleagues. Find me on Wednesday, presenting on (1) the European Investment Bank’s activities in Africa and (2) coloniality of EU funding & financing to Africa. Also very welcome to discuss the coloniality of dev practices.

Brazil’s G20 climate taskforce argues that real climate action needs green industrial strategy & strong (public) green finance #MDBs. Aligning in their critique of private finance for development:
www.g20.utoronto.ca/2024/241024-...

I compile two original databases for the region in Asia, Latin-America, Africa, the Caribbean, the Pacific and OCT:
1) a micro-level analysis of all 2,566 EIB projects from 1965-2024
2) a macro-level analysis of EIB lending from 2000-2022.

Happy to (re-)share my first solo-authored article: "The European Investment Bank in Sub-Saharan Africa: Constrained Expansion" published in the Journal of Economic Policy Reform!🎉It examines the @eib.org strategic & operational dynamics in Africa. Read here: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....