10/ Enormous thanks to the brilliant experts and colleagues who shared insights and feedback along the way. Read it here: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

9/ Our analysis draws on:
📃200+ policy docs from CGD & ODI
📄100+ shareholder statements
🗨️ 24 elite interviews with MDB staff & policymakers
📊 New data on derisking practices and capital mobilisation flows

8/ We argue that the future of the Maximising Finance for Development (MFD) agenda is more open and contested than assumed. With China's rise, US desire to transform MDBs business models faces strong political and geopolitical resistance.

7/ So where's the momentum now?
Not toward securitisation, but capital adequacy reforms (CAF) and proposals to leverage/strengthen the traditional MDB business model: borrowing cheaply and lending to governments in the Global South.

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.

5/ We distinguish between project derisking (common but small-scale) and portfolio derisking (what institutional investors want; liquid, standardised assets). MDBs mostly do the former. The latter would require overhauling their business model.

4/ Much of the WSC literature assumes MDBs are moving toward large-scale securitisation, or an "originate-to-distribute" model. Our findings challenge this: MDBs remain locked in an "originate-and-hold" logic, due to institutional and political constraints.

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.

1/ Since the 2015 Addis Ababa conference, Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) have embraced a new orthodoxy: mobilise private capital by "derisking" investment. This is the essence of the Wall Street Consensus (WSC), a financialised vision of development.

“What does the EU-OACPS Samoa Agreement entail regarding ‘investments’ in/for Africa?”, even more so in the context of (1) geopolitization and (2) financialization, within EU development finance. We identify a shift from traditional “aid and trade” relationships to investment-centred collaboration.