Recent Posts
What the Biden Administration Should Be Looking for in a World Bank President
February 17, 2023With David Malpass’s announcement on Wednesday that he will step down as president of the World Bank, the Biden Administration is faced with the choice of a nominee to run the institution at a particularly challenging time. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has put forward an ambitious reform proposal that puts global challenges at the center of the World Bank’s agenda, with climate finance chief among them. This implies significant change for an institution that generally sees itself responding to the demands of its borrowing countries. Where the United States and European allies [...]
Is the European Investment Bank Finally Transforming Itself Into a Development Bank?
February 14, 2023The European Investment Bank’s (EIB) 2022 annual results and operational plans for 2023-2025 are out. The top line: EIB financing in 2022 fell from EUR93.6 billion in 2021 to EUR72.45 billion. However, EIB lending to countries outside of the European Union (EU) grew from EUR7.2 billion in 2021 to EUR 9.18 billion. 2022 has not been short of challenges for the bank, not least because of the war in Ukraine and the related and interlinked developments that have given rise to threats of economic recession in Europe and increasing pressure [...]
Evolving the World Bank’s Twin Goals
January 26, 2023The World Bank management’s Evolution Roadmap suggests the institution is reconsidering its ‘twin goals’ mission statement of eradicating extreme poverty (ending $2.15 poverty by 2030) and boosting shared prosperity (raising the incomes of the bottom 40 percent in each country). “nearly half the world – over 3 billion people – lives on less than US$6.85 per day, the average of the national poverty lines of upper-middle income countries… The WBG [World Bank Group] could consider adding a higher poverty line to be targeted alongside extreme [$2.15] poverty. This might align [...]
The World Bank Group’s Evolution Roadmap: More Work Needed
January 11, 2023At the Annual Meetings of the World Bank and IMF in October last year, shareholders asked the World Bank to come up with a set of proposals to take a larger role in climate and other global public goods. The Bank’s first response came pretty quick: by mid-December, only a couple of months after the request, the institution sent an evolution roadmap to the World Bank board. It is very much worth a read, with much to like but much to panic over, too. Unsurprisingly, given the timeline, a lot [...]