Callable capital is an international treaty obligation with a nominal value of $891 billion across seven major multilateral development banks (MDBs). It is a specialised type of guarantee committed by government shareholders as a last resort for repaying bond holders in the event of an extreme shock to MDB finances.
Despite its history, as a central pillar of the MDB financial model since 1944, very little is understood about callable capital.
A key factor fuelling this uncertainty is the process by which member governments would meet a hypothetical capital call.
To help fill this knowledge gap, this paper – part of a broader ODI project on callable capital – gathers information from 21 governments who collectively represent 59.5% of callable capital commitments (US$530 billion) across the seven major MDBs.
