Sally Paxton

A common thread for scaling development finance: transparency

By Sally Paxton and Guest | Nov 13, 2024 | Blog

Following the World Bank Annual Meetings, and amidst negotiations for the replenishment of the International Development Association, Sally Paxton and Nancy Lee sift through some of the issues holding back the scaling of public and private resources. They find a common thread – transparency – and argue that multilateral development banks should be using the power of their own data to help fill the information gaps that stand in the way of progress.

Transforming our understanding of what works to mobilise private investors

By Sally Paxton and Gary Forster | Oct 16, 2024 | Blog

Ahead of next week’s World Bank Annual Meetings, Sally Paxton discusses the critical role of development banks in mobilising private capital to meet global development goals, and why we still don’t understand what is working. She presents new recommendations from Publish What You Fund to fill the current knowledge gap by improving the measurement and disclosure of private capital mobilisation, and stresses why action is urgently needed.

USAID’s measurement approach is undermining its progress on localization and its goal to diversify its local partner base

By Sally Paxton and Henry Lewis | Jun 20, 2024 | Blog, News

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has made a bold
commitment to the localization agenda: it has set a target that 25% of its funding will go directly to local partners by 2025. However, our new analysis shows that how USAID defines and measures localization is actually undermining its progress and at odds with its aim to increase the diversity of local partners and amplify under-represented voices. It is allowing perverse incentives – such as affiliates of international organizations to be counted as local – and leaving significant funding opportunities – such as projectized funding that currently goes to UN agencies and multilaterals – untapped for local partners.

Is IDA’s Private Sector Window mobilizing the private sector?

By Sally Paxton | May 8, 2024 | Blog

Since the establishment of the International Development Association’s (IDA’s) Private Sector Window (PSW), there have been concerns about its structure, use of blended finance, and the inability to measure its progress and impact. With the start of IDA21 replenishment discussions, it is an appropriate time to analyze the PSW – especially to understand whether and how it is mobilizing the private sector. Finally, in the context of broader MDB reform efforts, how do we scale up private capital mobilization to close the significant financial gaps needed to meet the Sustainable Development Goals?

What’s missing from the World Bank’s Draft Gender Strategy? Transparency

By Alex Farley and Sally Paxton | Feb 13, 2024 | Blog

As the World Bank prepares to finalise its new gender strategy, we ask how you can identify World Bank projects targeting gender equality, their location, sector, amount of funding and most importantly their impact. In short, you can’t. We set out why this matters for accountability and how the Bank should address the transparency gaps in its gender strategy and implementation plan.

Funding the localization agenda: USAID’s progress

By Gary Forster, Sally Paxton and Guest | Dec 5, 2023 | Blog

Daryl Grisgraber (Oxfam America)joins Gary Forster and Sally Paxton to highlight new Oxfam America research which uses Publish What You Fund’s methodology to track the US Agency for International Development’s localization goal.