Development banks are becoming increasingly important in light of cuts to foreign aid by Western countries such as the United States and Switzerland. But how do these banks work, and what do they achieve for the Global South? Development banks are cooperative banks set up by states. Their aim is to promote development in other countries, for instance by supporting infrastructure projects through favourable loans. Given the recent cuts in international development cooperation, they are now playing an ever more important role. How long have development banks been around? Development banks have long been a central component of the multilateral system. In 1944, with the Second World War still raging, delegates from 44 countries, meeting at the Bretton Woods Conference, established the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to stabilise the global economy and, alongside it, the first development bank – the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD). The IBRD was intended to …