
A lot happened at the World Bank-International Monetary Fund annual meetings last week, even if some described it to me as a more subdued affair. I’ll get to some of the major themes I heard and some of the announcements made in a moment.
But first I want to tell you about an under-the-radar change made last week that could have significant ripple effects. S&P Global Ratings released new guidance about the methodology it uses to rate and assess risk at multilateral development banks.
“The Multilateral Lending Institutions’ (MLI) criteria change will lead to meaningful improvements in capital positions and could unlock $600 billion to $800 billion in additional sovereign lending capacity,” S&P wrote in the introduction to a report released last week.
That’s a significant amount of capital these institutions could collectively add to their balance sheets and maintain their ratings. And while experts tell me it's a big deal, they also say it won’t necessarily lead to action unless the other ratings agencies also adjust their methodologies.
S&P attributed the changes to new data, including from the Global Emerging Markets Database, as well as MDB historical performance disclosures and reports that assessed MDB risk. For those that have been pushing the MDBs to be more transparent for years, this only seems to prove the point.
“It’s both amazing and scary that we have had to fight so hard for so long to get this, and it raises questions about what other information the MDBs have got that could be super useful for development at a time where we can’t print money, but data can maybe help us,” Gary Forster, the CEO of Publish What You Fund, tells me.
Read: Could a credit ratings agency methodology change unlock billions at MDBs?
Jobs, jobs, jobs
But to the World Bank-IMF annual meetings. Private sector mobilization was an ever-present topic last week, and “jobs” was in the title of many sessions (including at least one I attended where the word “jobs” wasn’t used even once). In many of those conversations it went hand in hand with the bank's efforts to combine and work more efficiently across its public, private, and guarantee operations.
The bank’s big announcement of the week was a new initiative called AgriConnect: Farms, Firms, and Finance for Jobs, an effort to make smallholder farmers a key part of its jobs and economic growth strategy, my colleague Ayenat Mersie reports.
AgriConnect is intended as a test case for creating better impact through closer collaboration within the bank internally and with external partners. It’s part of a commitment the bank made last year to double its agribusiness and agrifinance investments to $9 billion annually by 2030.
The program has three core pillars: mobilizing private capital, investments in infrastructure including irrigation and electrification, and policy reforms. That’s in line with what I heard from a lot of bank officials who were focused on how the bank was actually changing and how it could leverage its operations to do more, especially when it comes to bringing in the private sector.
But I also had a frank conversation with several private financiers about what it takes to actually mobilize capital and how and when they work with the private sector. At a Devex event on the sidelines of the meetings, Stephanie von Friedeburg, managing director and global head of public sector at Citi, told me she sees five persistent barriers: a shortage of bankable projects, currency risk, weak enabling environments, limited data, and regulations.
“The ability for an institution like Citi Bank to put capital at risk in these markets is fundamentally regulated by U.S. agencies and by Basel,” she said, referring to international banking regulations developed by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. “Until we make some surgical changes to Basel and ultimately to U.S. regulation, the money won’t move.”
Read: Inside the World Bank’s plan to boost jobs by investing in agribusiness
Related: Could centering agribusiness be the key to tackling food insecurity
Plus: ‘Billions to trillions’ fatigue sets in among top finance leaders
+ Check out all of our on-the-ground coverage from the World Bank-IMF meetings, including one-on-one and panel conversations from the Devex Impact House event held on the sidelines of the meetings.
Debt decisions
The Group of 20 major economies found agreement on one issue last week: debt. It issued a debt declaration for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic reaffirming support for the Common Framework for Debt Treatments. While that might be a positive sign, civil society organizations called on the G20 to go further. And there may still be an opportunity for further action, including through recommendations from an expert panel on debt that are expected at the upcoming G20 Leaders’ Summit next month in Johannesburg, South Africa.
For those worried about what might happen in the G20 next year when the U.S. takes over leadership, Eric LeCompte, the executive director of Jubilee USA Network, tells me that the U.S. continues to demonstrate leadership on debt issues in the G20.
And despite the debt communiqué, there is disagreement about how well the current processes work, whether there should be a new system for addressing debt and the actual solutions. It’s unreasonable to expect countries to grow their way out of debt without first having in place the ability to borrow and some relief, but it's still often suggested in debt conversations, LeCompte tells me.
Read: G20 recommits to debt relief — but critics say it’s far from enough
Let’s get together, yeah yeah yeah
Last week I wrote about how the World Bank Group was in the midst of a big operational reorganization that will merge many of its operations across its various branches. But it’s not only the knowledge, treasury, HR and IT teams that are being combined as the bank seeks efficiency and integration.
The World Bank’s board has created an independent task force to assess whether the bank’s three complaint mechanisms — the Inspection Panel, Compliance Advisor Ombudsman, and the Dispute Resolution Service — should be merged or better coordinated. Today, those accountability mechanisms, designed to give communities a way to hold the institution accountable when things go wrong during the course of projects that it funded, have their own staff, policies, and procedures.
The goal of the task force is evaluating potential reforms that would prioritize strengthening the bank’s accountability system, Parameswaran Iyer, the executive director representing India at the World Bank, said at an event last week.
“Those key principles of no dilution, no regression — they are at the heart of this,” Iyer said.
But some civil society organizations still worry that combining the mechanisms could weaken them if not done properly.
“For an ambitious One World Bank Group, you need a state-of-the-art accountability mechanism to underpin it,” says Margaux Day, executive director at the Accountability Counsel.
Read: World Bank pledges ‘no regression’ as it weighs accountability overhaul
Related: In a changing world, where do World Bank reforms stand? (Pro)
Background: What World Bank reforms mean for its watchdog (Pro)
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Making moves
The European Investment Bank has launched a new global strategy, with a goal of providing €10 billion in annual financing, and to be “more focused and impact-oriented” as the bank also moves into defense and security for the first time in its history, EIB President Nadia Calviño said at a Devex event on the sidelines of the World Bank-IMF meetings last week. Its top priority will be Ukraine, with other regions seeing a “more targeted, differentiated approach.”
Read: EIB launches €10B plan with Calviño stressing global partnerships
The World Bank is set to host Brazil’s $125 billion Tropical Forest Forever Facility, which aims to use performance-based financing to conserve tropical forests. The bank’s board is expected to decide whether it will be the secretariat and trustee of the facility at a meeting today, according to a document seen by my colleague Jesse Chase-Lubitz. The United Kingdom, Norway, and Germany are expected to make initial investments in the fund by Nov. 6.
Read: World Bank poised to host Brazil’s $125 billion forest facility
+ Listen: In the latest episode of our podcast series, recorded live on the sidelines of the World Bank-IMF annual meetings, I was joined by my colleagues Michael Igoe and Elissa Miolene to discuss the major talking points at the meetings.
What we’re reading
The German development ministry’s survival plan. [Devex Pro]
BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners joins Exxon in backing new carbon emissions accounting model. [Bloomberg]
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says the IMF could sell its Maryland golf course, stick to its core mission. [Reuters via Yahoo! Finance]