PUBLICATIONS CENTRE
DEBT PAUSE CLAUSES CONFRONT THEIR FIRST DISASTER: FROM HURRICANE BERYL TO BROADER POLICY MOMENTUM
This policy brief examines the first real-world use of debt pause clauses - contractual mechanisms that allow sovereign borrowers to temporarily defer debt payments in the wake of a disaster. Following Hurricane Beryl in 2024, Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines became the first countries to trigger these clauses, securing vital liquidity to support their crisis response. The brief explores how the clauses functioned in practice, their relationship with other financing instruments and offers critical guidance to improve how these instruments are designed, implemented and scaled as momentum builds toward broader adoption.
IDA19: A VITAL TOOL IN MANAGING CRISIS RISK
This policy brief draws on the findings of five Discussion Papers in the Centre’s IDA19 Series. Asking how IDA could be strengthened to deliver better results for those living in extreme poverty, it identifies a number of strategic and operational challenges that should be addressed if IDA is to fulfil its potential as a major financier of crisis risk.
IDA’S CRISIS RESPONSE (CRW): LEARNING LESSONS TO DRIVE CHANGE
$3 billion was allocated to the CRW in IDA18, equivalent to a third of IDA’s total spending on crisis financing. This paper and accompanying policy brief detail how the CRW has been used to date, and identifies a number of concrete ways of improving its performance.