Global development is facing mounting challenges, such as easing economic growth momentums, increasing financial market volatilities, heating geopolitical tensions, fragmenting trade and finance networks, diminishing fiscal spaces, deteriorating climate outlooks, and persisting scars caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The world is undergoing major changes unseen in a century. To achieve the UN 2030 SDGs, the world needs new mindsets, engines, and solutions for a new era of global development that is people-centric, inclusive, innovation-driven and action-oriented. It also requires more active and closer cooperation among emerging economies to complement existing global economic governance frameworks. As a crystallization of BRICS cooperation and a platform to mobilize resources for infrastructure and sustainable development, the New Development Bank strives to enhance its role of connecting BRICS and other Emerging Market and Developing Countries (EMDCs) to work collectively for such a new era for global development. 

Flagship NDB Governor Seminar on Innovation Driving Global Development

The profound challenges from the retreat of multilateralism, the rewiring of globalization, the reconfiguration of global supply chain, the fragmentation of global financial network, more frequent and extreme weather events triggered by climate change, shrinking fiscal space, and fast-rising interest rates call for innovative solutions to power global development. First and foremost, we need to innovate on development thinking and policies to resolve structural constraints on economic growth and achieve green, sustainable, and inclusive development. We also need to break new ground in international development cooperation and establish innovative forms of global partnership for development to pursue the greater good and shared interests on the basis of equality, mutual benefit, and mutual respect. In addition, we need to explore innovative funding and financing solutions to support economic and social development in the current environment of rising interest rates.

Furthermore, we need to apply innovative technologies in the present digital era to enhance connectivity and maximize development impacts. The Flagship Seminar will shed light on finding innovative solutions for driving global development.

High-Level Seminar on Resource Mobilization for Connectivity in the Digital Era

With technological breakthroughs emerging at an unprecedented pace, the associated challenges and opportunities to the global economic linkages and development agenda must be understood. One of the most important realizations is that the world is transitioning into a digital era, and this fast-moving process is redefining global connectivity and economic landscape. Specifically, by lowering transaction costs, improving information flows and broadening the scope of business, digitization enhances linkages across countries and sectors, strengthens global supply chains, and stimulates cross-culture knowledge exchanges for better innovations, all of which are critical elements for addressing the multiple challenges facing the world today. Digitization is also reshaping international trade, both physical trade and services trade. These trends call for countries to strengthen their collaborations to improve connectivity in the digital era, in areas, including but not limited to, infrastructure investment for trade, innovation and technology transfer, people-to-people exchange, policy coordination, and practical approaches to avoid digital divide. This high-level seminar will shed light on these issues.

High-Level Seminar on Deepening the Global Partnership for Development

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed severe strains in the global economy, and underlined the fact that the global economic system is both vertically and horizontally integrated in ways that prosperity and poverty are both shared. The challenges faced owing to the retreat of multilateralism could only be addressed by deepening global partnership. The current global governance system, despite being evolved for over 70 years and has played an important role in the past, is falling short of addressing the global development deficit in the world today. The development challenges call for better cooperation among countries, both advanced economies and EMDCs. A crystallization of partnership for development is the BRICS cooperation, which has evolved into an important platform for developing countries to engage in constructive dialogue and cooperation, with development issues as its core. The BRICS mechanism is still expanding, with more potential member countries to join, and collectively to raise its international influence for development. It also calls for multilateral development banks to work as a team to address the development challenges. Against this background, this high-level seminar will shed light on how to strengthen global partnership for development and how multilateral development banks can contribute.