Barbados has issued the world’s first government bond with a clause allowing payments to be suspended in the event of another global pandemic, a move expected to attract interest from dozens of other countries savaged by the COVID-19 crisis. The …
In late January 2015, just after the deadliest outbreak of Ebola in history, then-World Bank President Jim Yong Kim stood in front of a group of Georgetown University students and professors to introduce a new approach to fighting pandemics. Fresh …
Almost exactly four years ago the World Bank announced a pioneering project, the Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility, designed to develop a new insurance market and protect the world’s poorest countries against deadly disease. The PEF, as it’s known, was supposed …
A ruling last week not to wipe out holders of a World Bank financial instrument providing emergency funds to poor countries in a pandemic, was just a stay of execution if bond markets are to be believed. The riskier $95 …
To offset the crushing costs of trying to stem a global epidemic, the World Bank and partners announced the creation of “pandemic bonds” several years ago: the idea was to leverage private capital from Wall Street firms that would help …
The severity of the global coronavirus epidemic has reached levels almost certain to trigger a financial instrument sold by the World Bank to raise money for developing countries in a pandemic. The bonds, which were sold in 2017, are quoted …
The World Health Organization says the coronavirus isn’t yet a global pandemic. Bonds that insure against just such a catastrophe say that it probably is. The bonds, sold in 2017 by the World Bank to raise money for poor countries …
A World Bank bond designed to deliver funding to help the world’s poorest countries to tackle fast-spreading diseases has lost half its value as the coronavirus outbreak in China has fanned fears that investors could face hefty losses. After the …
