WIPO Director General Francis Gurry has announced a project to build a common digital platform which will help streamline the identification of protected musical works across 11 West African countries, helping creators from these countries get paid for their work through a simplified and standardised rights registration system. US firm Google will be WIPO’s technology partner in developing this new web-based system, which builds upon WIPOCOS (WIPO Software for Collective Management of Copyright and Related Rights).

At the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations in Cancún in December 2010, the World Bank was granted the interim trusteeship of the newly established Green Climate Fund (GCF). Recent events indicate that the Bank and other multilateral development banks (MDBs) will also have an influential role in the design of the fund. The Climate Investment Funds (CIFs), a collaborative MDB climate finance initiative housed at the Bank, are being pointed to as ‘a best practice’ model for the GCF. This paper critically assesses the appropriateness of the CIFs as a model for a global climate finance fund. It finds that in terms of institutional arrangements the CIFs have achieved some notable progress that acknowledges some of the critical issues raised by civil society groups. However, in operations and performance there are serious concerns.