IEFG BIG SERIES: Crises

- Financial Crashes -

30 May 2022


 

Audio recording

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Reflections from the Session

Food, fuel, fertiliser, flooding and fragility: the financing conundrum. How can the education community make the case for budget as an investment to respond to these crises, when responding to these crises is so urgent?

What currency should you give cash in? What rate should you adjust for inflation, and how often should you adjust this? Great challenges from today's panel, with recommendations to fund flexibly and long-term, and build strong internal learning loops. These are lessons from the humanitarian space that the EiE WG hoped would come out across this series.

Do we need a Global Finance Ministry? Who are we advocating to in order to change things?

How can the education community look beyond making a 'more money for education' case to help solve the bigger financial issues?

 

Resources

➡️ Investors predict US recession in 2023 – here are the facts: In the wake of the first interest rate hike since 2018, Deutsche Bank became the first major bank to forecast a US recession for next year. The report discussed in this article – co-authored by the bank’s chief economist David Folkerts-Landau and former Fed official Peter Hooper – finds that “the US economy is expected to take a major hit from the extra Fed tightening by late next year and early 2024.”
➡️ War sets back the global recovery: 
The war in Ukraine has triggered a costly humanitarian crisis that demands a peaceful resolution. At the same time, economic damage from the conflict will contribute to a significant slowdown in global growth in 2022 and add to inflation. Already fuel and food prices have increased rapidly, hitting vulnerable populations in low-income countries hardest. Find other projections here.
➡️ Inflation is killing nonprofits. Funders, you need to supplement your grants immediately:
We know that inflation has been at a 40-year high, likely to stay bad or get worse over the next few months. Vu Le discusses how inflation has been affecting nonprofits, highlighting the kind of thoughtful approach that funders need to take – from increasing the amount to considering equity implications. Access the article here. 
➡️ Interview: Arvind Subramanian, former Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of India:
For those interested in India’s economic growth trajectory, this interview summarises India’s economy – how it got to where it is today, what the situation is now, what the stumbling blocks and challenges are, the best policies to meet those challenges, and so on. Arvind Subramanian, an academic economist, served as the Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of India from 2014-2018. 
➡️ War-induced food price inflation imperils the poor:
This column – part of the Vox debate on economic consequences of war – uses a newly developed toolkit to analyse the welfare impacts of food price inflation on households in developing countries. This article provides modelled predictions of the impact of the Ukrainian war on food prices; the conflict has led to a surge in food prices, particularly wheat and corn.