Politicians and government officials need to look beyond the traditional development banking model if they hope to make an impact on the scale needed to drag their countries out of poverty (or at least stagnation). Development bank architects should design development banks based on successful role models – like the China Development Bank – instead of proven failures.
A mix of government and private sector participation, a widely disbursed capital base, and a temporary base in a top-tier international financial centre, will help ensure these banks act as bridge and vector of pro-developmental capitalism. Rather than talking in generalities and abstractions, we focus our exposition around the design of a specific proposed IGAD Communities Development Bank — showing in practice how to tackle the issues involved in development banking.