With the World Bank Spring Meetings just around the corner, there is a deluge of news as the anti-poverty lender gets ready for big reforms. This could be a make-or-break moment for efforts to get the bank in shape for the modern era — and the consequences will reverberate for years.
Recent highlights hint at a superpacked meeting in Washington next month:
• “Developing countries will need $2.4 trillion per year for the next seven years to address climate costs, conflict, and pandemics alone,” outgoing World Bank President David Malpass said last week. He announced a three-pronged plan to boost flows of investors’ cash to places in need: The bank aims to create better business environments in its client countries; develop new projects that investors will want to put their money into; and design new investment-grade-quality debt instruments for investors to buy. Malpass has said he will step down at the end of June.
About the authors
Shabtai Gold
Shabtai Gold is a Senior Reporter based in Washington. He covers multilateral development banks, with a focus on the World Bank, along with trends in development finance. Prior to Devex, he worked for the German Press Agency, dpa, for more than a decade, with stints in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, before relocating to Washington to cover politics and business.
Adva Saldinger@AdvaSal
Adva Saldinger is a Senior Reporter at Devex where she covers development finance, as well as U.S. foreign aid policy. Adva explores the role the private sector and private capital play in development and authors the weekly Devex Invested newsletter bringing the latest news on the role of business and finance in addressing global challenges. A journalist with more than 10 years of experience, she has worked at several newspapers in the U.S. and lived in both Ghana and South Africa.
