Davos Dispatch — what really went down at WEF '23?

Facing a climate breakdown, leaders 'act while we learn'

2023 was the hottest year on record. So it’s no surprise that the climate emergency was a big focus of last week’s World Economic Forum [https://www.devex.com/organizations/world-economic-forum-46616] annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. Devex’s Raj Kumar sat down with several leaders to discuss how the climate crisis intersects with their work: Peter Sands, the executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria [https://www.devex.com/organizations/the-global-fund-to-fight-aids-tuberculosis-and-malaria-gfatm-30677]; Sophie Atiende, CEO of the Global Fund to End Modern Slavery [https://www.devex.com/organizations/global-fund-to-end-modern-slavery-gfems-102346]; and Jonathan Reckford, CEO of Habitat for Humanity [https://www.devex.com/organizations/habitat-for-humanity-international-44569]. Together, they explore the interconnections between climate change and the issues they are focused on, as well as the urgency for action. Sands describes a visit to northern Nigeria with Muhammad Ali Pate, the country’s minister of health and social welfare, where they saw “a shocking number” of children who were malnourished and severely ill with malaria. “It’s a good example of how the climate change interaction is sort of multifactorial,” he said, explaining how climate change is harming agricultural productivity, leading to malnutrition, and changing the epidemiology of malaria. “The combined impact of that is more severely ill children and more deaths of small children,” Sands said. “That's the kind of thing we're still trying to understand. But my view is we need to act while we learn. We can't wait for a perfect answer; we need to be doing more in anticipation of how we see this unfolding.” Listen to the episode to hear more from Sands, Atiende, and Reckord, who joined Kumar for the Davos Dispatch podcast, recorded from WEF in Davos, Switzerland.

Financing tech solutions in Africa

There are a growing number of social entrepreneurs using technology to address a range of development challenges in Africa, from agriculture healthcare to education. But many of them say that financing is the greatest barrier to scale. At the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2024, Devex’s Raj Kumar sat down with three social entrepreneurs: Temie Giwa-Tubosun, CEO of LifeBank, a healthcare technology and logistics company delivering critical medical supplies, Gerald Abila, founder of BarefootLaw, a non-profit in Uganda providing access to justice through technology, and Mayur Patel, chief commercial officer at M-Kopa, an asset financing platform in Africa. Their conversations point to several ways social entrepreneurs are using technology to address social challenges, as well as the crucial role financing must play in scaling their impact. "The big barriers for growth are not demand,” Patel said. “They're not the scalability of the platform, or the opportunity. The big barriers to growth are figuring out how you solve the working capital cycle.” Listen to the episode to hear more from Giwa-Tubosun, Abila, and Patel, who joined Kumar for the Davos Dispatch podcast, recorded from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

What's next for the Green Climate Fund?

It’s a big moment for the United Nations Green Climate Fund [https://www.devex.com/organizations/the-green-climate-fund-gcf-53335]. Its funding levels hit a record high following the climate conference COP 28, with several countries adding contributions to its second replenishment that sent the fund’s total soaring past its $10 billion goal to $12.8 billion [https://www.greenclimate.fund/news/cop28-green-climate-fund-reaches-record-funding-level]. GCF’s Executive Director Mafalda Duarte oversaw the replenishment after assuming the role only three months prior, having departed her previous job [https://www.devex.com/news/scoop-multibillion-dollar-climate-fund-is-hunting-for-its-new-chief-105542] as the head of the Climate Investment Funds [https://www.devex.com/organizations/climate-investment-funds-63325] in June. Somewhere in there, she was also at the Africa Climate Summit, the U.N. [https://www.devex.com/organizations/united-nations-un-41567] General Assembly, and multiple other global engagements. “Quite intense,” she acknowledged to Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar in Davos, Switzerland, the latest stop on her whirlwind travel agenda.But if Duarte has been busy, it’s because she’s making huge strides at an organization that was in a notably rocky place [https://www.devex.com/news/q-a-behind-the-breakdown-at-un-s-green-climate-fund-93250] a few years ago. On this episode of Davos Dispatch, a series housed under our regular weekly podcast, This Week in Global Development, Duarte gives us the scoop on what’s next for GCF and its role in climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Making 'billions to trillions' a reality

The “billions to trillions” narrative — the idea that a relatively small amount of public financing can be used to crowd in trillions of dollars in private capital to solve climate and other development challenges — has been discussed in development finance circles for nearly a decade [https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-reports/documentdetail/602761467999349576/from-billions-to-trillions-mdb-contributions-to-financing-for-development] now. And yet there’s still an annual $4 trillion gap [https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/07/1138352] in financing for energy, water, and other critical development objectives. Speaking to Devex’s Raj Kumar, Samaila Zubairu, CEO of the Africa Finance Corporation [https://www.devex.com/organizations/africa-finance-corporation-afc-57009] shared how his organization is leveraging public-private partnerships in “risky” countries such as Gabon and Djibouti, and what larger multilateral development banks should be doing to be more effective. “What is most important is for us to introduce more urgency in our approach to work. We need to really start to focus on outcomes,” Zubairu said. “We should all be accountable. We should be looking at what's the baseline at a certain period of time, and what are we doing to cause improvements to happen.” Zubairu joined Kumar for the Davos Dispatch podcast, recorded from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Davos Dispatch — what really went down at WEF '23?

Davos 2023 has wrapped, and Devex was there to experience it all. In this installment of Davos Dispatch, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar compared notes with reporter Vince Chadwick on what the conference means for development, the private sector and how the two can, and must, work together. And despite their differing Davos experiences—Raj moderated a number of WEF panels while Vince joined a frozen press scrum waiting in vain for Greta Thunberg—they both agree that the conference is quite unlike anything else.