Financing for Development

To facilitate increased awareness, the World Bank Group is launching a Financing for Development Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on November 16. The objective is to familiarize more people with the new development agenda, the critical role of the private sector and the use of finance, including innovative solutions, to fund the SDGs and meet the Bank Group goals of ending poverty and boosting shared prosperity by 2030.

Join the growing numbers of those who understand the importance of combining public resources with private and commercial finance for the common good to implement the 17 SDGs. Over the four-week course, participants will hear from prominent government, international organization and private sector leaders who have considerable first-hand experience in preparing and implementing development projects and forging public-private collaborations globally and regionally. The challenges and successes of mobilizing billions to generate the trillions needed will also be outlined.

This course includes terminology, key concepts, sources of development finance, public, private and commercial, and multilateral, and the need for increased use of ODA and innovative financing solutions to mobilize and leverage domestic and official development resources alongside private funds. Participants learn through video presentations, core reading materials and links to additional videos and readings. Join the conversation through discussion boards, two Google Hangouts, Twitter chats and other interactive features that encourage active learning.

This course will familiarize participants with the approaches currently under discussion among global leaders on financing the new development agenda.

Overview
This overview presents the main topics the course will cover:

Week 1: Introduction to Financing for Development
The first Module defines financing for development and its purpose, describes the main sources of finance and the principal actors involved in financing for development projects, discusses the trends in development finance and outlines why a paradigm shift is needed to mobilize the necessary financing resources to achieve the SDGs. reach the global goals. The Module also touches upon the outgoing general framework for development , the MDGs of 2000-2015, and the successor SDGs covering the period 2016-2030 adopted in September.

Week 2: Public Finance
The second Module introduces and explains domestic and international public finance resources. It highlights issues such as improving domestic resource mobilization, increasing the efficiency of public expenditure measures such as reducing illicit financial flows, and better leveraging Official Development Assistance to enhance its ability to mobilize other sources of public and private finance , particularly for low-income and fragile economies. The Module also discusses the importance for countries to improve the investment climate for greater private investment and to foster development of domestic capital markets to facilitate the tapping of domestic savings for development uses.

Week 3: Private and Commercial Finance
The third Module focuses on sources of domestic and international private and commercial finance. It includes the substantial growth of foreign direct and portfolio investments and of domestic capital markets in select developing countries. It emphasizes the growth and potential of newer sources of private and commercial finance, such as philanthropic funds, sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, and private equity, to be “crowded in” by more targeted use of public resources. It highlights challenges and obstacles the private sector sees to greater mobilization of private sector funding, including needed incentives such as greater risk-sharing and a more hospitable regulatory environment. This Module spotlights infrastructure finance, as one of the most resource-intensive and pervasive development sectors across the developing world, discussing the needs and the current impediments to attracting the capital projected to be required to meet those needs.

Week 4: The Financing Role of the Multilateral Development Banks, and Wrap Up
The fourth Module provides an overview of the MDBs, explaining their business models that have allowed them to leverage their capital and equity to support a vastly greater portfolio of development projects worldwide. It also discusses innovative financing solutions used in recent years to mobilize and generate new financing flows and improve the efficient use of available funds. This Module also highlights the role of MDBs in financing global public goods (GPGs), with climate finance spotlighted as a prime example of innovative techniques and financing vehicles used to ramp up funding deployed in this critical and global area. This Module concludes with a wrap-up of the key learnings the course has attempted to convey.

Course Tracks

Participants can participate in one of two tracks:

• General Awareness
• Development Specialist

Participants can move from the General Awareness to the Development Specialist Track at any time during the course.

Track 1 – General Awareness

Target Audience
This Track is suitable for anyone with a general interest in and desire to increase understanding of development finance, in particular the need to scale up to meet the financing needs supporting achievement of the SDGs and development more generally.

Common Objective
To describe the fundamental concepts of development finance, the sources of funding, and the role of finance in supporting the new Sustainable Development Agenda and development generally. This includes, in particular, the increasing need for public resources to be used innovatively to mobilize and leverage the growing pools of private and commercial finance to meet the 17 SDGs. 

Assignments
Assignments focus multiple-choice questions on subjects that reinforce learning that should be derived from watching the required video talks and doing the core readings. A reflective assignment (500 words) is designed to encourage active learning by requiring participants to select a topic of importance to them and to write an opinion piece that is then peer-reviewed and posted for review and discussion by other participants.

Track 2 – Development Specialist

Target Audience
This Track is suitable for anyone who works in the development field or considers development a special area of interest. That would include: official development partners (including officials of the MDBs, IMF, UN and its agencies, donor and client government ministries of finance, foreign affairs and development, and central banks), the private sector, foundations, civil society organizations, and academics, students and other experts concentrating on development issues. It is designed to delve more deeply into the Module subjects, as well as to allow participants to create networks of common interest with counterparts from around the world.

Common Objective
To describe the fundamental concepts of development finance, the sources of funding, and the role of finance in supporting the Sustainable Development Agenda and development generally. This includes, in particular, the increasing need for public resources to be used innovatively to mobilize and leverage the growing pools of private and commercial finance to meet the global goals. 

Assignments
Assignments focus multiple-choice questions on subjects that reinforce learning that should be derived from watching the required video talks and doing the core readings. A Digital Artifact assignment relevant to their context or work, either (i) describing a situation or issue of importance, or (ii) designing a financing solution or plan, using multimedia (anything but text), is meant to deepen the discussion and collective learning. The digital artifact will be peer-reviewed and posted for discussion by other participants. Participants will be encouraged to translate complicated concepts into simple or actionable ideas, in a style that could be understood by laypeople in their community.

Connect

Communicate and share resources via the course hash tag on Twitter #Fin4DevMOOC. Other hash tags you may want to monitor are #Fin4Dev, #SDGs, #post2015, #developmentfinance.

Related Twitter accounts to follow and/or monitor are: @SDgoals, @SustDev, @devfinancenews