The pilot IFFInternational Finance Facility gets the go-ahead. Now is the time to start talking about the future aid architecture, ODIOverseas Development Institute (London) Blog, August 2005

Eurostat and the UK Office of National Statistics have announced an important decision which will pave the way for governments to contribute to the pilot version of Gordon Brown's proposed International Finance Facility, and perhaps eventually to the full-scale IFF. This means aid will rise even faster than already planned. A conversation about how to reshape the aid architecture becomes ever more urgent.

Both the IFFIM and the full-scale IFFInternational Finance Facility are designed to front-load aid, and work by governments borrowing capital sums from bond markets against future repayments. The question was whether statistical authorities would insist that the totality of contributions to the immunisation pilot be counted against government expenditure at the time of the original borrowing, or whether they would be counted only when repayments were made. If the former, then the benefit of the mode of financing would effectively disappear.....................