Global Development Finance

International private capital flows to developing countries reached a record net level of $491 billion in 2005. This surge in private capital flows offers national and international policy makers a major opportunity to bolster development efforts if they can successfully meet three challenges. The first is to ensure that more countries, especially poorer ones, enhance their access to developmentally beneficial international capital through improvements in their macroeconomic performance, investment climate, and use of aid. The second is to avoid sudden capital flow reversals by redressing global imbalances through policies that recognize the growing interdependencies between developed and developing countries' financial and exchange rate relations in the determination of global financial liquidity and asset price movements. And the third is to ensure that development finance, both official and private, is managed judiciously to meet the development goals of recipient countries while promoting greater engagement with global financial markets. These are the themes and concerns of this year's edition of 'Global Development Finance'.