While there have been few public signals about how the Trump administration will view the World Bank, lawmakers did make clear one policy change they’d like it to make.
The House Financial Services Committee — which governs U.S. funding and relationship with multilateral development banks — approved the International Nuclear Energy Financing Act of 2025 last week in a 39-10 vote.
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The bill, if passed, would direct the U.S. to use its “voice, vote, and influence” to advocate for the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and other international financial institutions to remove prohibitions against funding the generation and distribution of nuclear energy. The bill also says the U.S. should encourage them to increase their internal capacity to evaluate nuclear energy projects and provide related technical assistance. It also calls for the creation of a Nuclear Energy Assistance Trust Fund to provide technical assistance and financial support to nuclear energy projects.
U.S. Rep. French Hill, the chair of the House Financial Services Committee, sponsored this bill, which references a pledge made last year by the U.S. and more than 20 other countries to triple nuclear energy capacity by 2050 and support financing nuclear energy through MDBs. It also mentions that nuclear energy “is an emissions-free energy source” and that China and Russia are both building nuclear plants in many countries around the world.
The bill will still have to pass through the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate and get a presidential signature before becoming law — something that could prove challenging in the legislative environment. But Todd Moss, executive director of the Energy for Growth Hub, points out that the bill could become all but moot if the World Bank preemptively decides to lift its ban on nuclear energy. World Bank President Ajay Banga must “carefully pivot” away from a focus on climate “to keep the Bank’s largest shareholder from quitting the organization — and he’s presumably negotiating to keep his job. Nuclear could help him do both,” Moss writes in a post.
Germany has traditionally been the chief anti-nuclear holdout but Moss believes that the new government there might give the bank some leeway to change its nuclear policy. The World Bank is also evidently doing a review of its policies, according to the Financial Times, so this is definitely an issue to watch at the Spring Meetings next month.
I also heard U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright speak last week about his approach to financing energy access, when he said that the Trump administration will help African countries pursue additional energy generation using any technology they want. That translates as: Gas, oil, and coal are all on the table, and concerns about climate change will not guide U.S. policy.
Read: US will support African energy needs, not climate, says US energy secretary
ICYMI: Could the US pull out of the World Bank? Unlikely — but not impossible
Startup shutdown
While the general consensus is that the Trump administration’s foreign aid policy will likely favor a private sector approach through agencies like the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, or DFC, some of the U.S. government’s efforts to support startups have been hit hard by the cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development.
“We went from having six months of runway to having negative money in an afternoon,” one startup founder in East Africa, who received thousands of dollars in grant funding from USAID, tells my colleague Ayenat Mersie. The USAID funds allowed the company to buy hardware and pay salaries, and also gave it credibility with other investors.
USAID often played a critical role in building startup ecosystems and in providing funding to fill gaps in the market, especially when it came to helping companies at early stages, or when they were exploring new innovations or expansions. That support varied in size, but in general was of a much smaller scale than what most DFIs, including DFC, provide.
Read: ‘That money is going to sink us’ — USAID funded startups fight to survive
+ If you’re looking for ideas to diversify your funding in the new aid environment, join us tomorrow, March 12, for an exclusive session with leading experts to explore alternative sources of funding available and how organizations can access them. Save your spot now.
New voices
EBRD’s expansion into the African continent continues, with Nigeria becoming the 77th shareholder, and third of six sub-Saharan African countries that will join the bank.
“Countries have welcomed us warmly in the past, but I think they are welcoming us even more warmly,” Heike Harmgart, EBRD’s managing director for sub-Saharan Africa, tells my colleague Jesse Chase-Lubitz.
One thing to note: EBRD does not yet operate in any sub-Saharan African countries but Côte d’Ivoire, Benin, and now Nigeria can help set strategy and could become “countries of operation” by midyear. Harmgart said she’s unsure what types of projects or financial support EBRD will provide.
Read: Nigeria becomes EBRD shareholder as it continues African expansion (Pro)
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Going local
The Green Climate Fund will soon be opening regional offices worldwide after the fund’s board approved opening its first hubs outside the South Korea headquarters.
The decision is seen as part of the fund’s response to long-standing frustrations from local organizations, which have said the fund’s slow and complex processes make it difficult for them to access climate finance, Ayenat writes.
Three regional offices are planned, with the Africa office — forecast to have 26 employees — set to be the largest.
Read: Green Climate Fund expands its reach with first regional offices
Background: Why the Green Climate Fund’s simplified approvals aren't that simple (Pro)
Linguistic purge
This week, the annual Commission on the Status of Women summit is taking place at the United Nations and the Trump administration has already been working with other countries to strike language promoting efforts to achieve gender parity at the U.N. from the expected political declaration. That includes weakening or removing language that would expand the role of women in peacekeeping and diplomacy and encourage the selection of a woman for the top U.N. job, my colleague Colum Lynch reports.
But that’s not the only forum where gender equality commitments are threatened. Negotiations are underway for the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development, or FfD4, which starts in June, and the zero draft “reflects global trends of regression on gender equality,” Beth Woroniuk, a senior fellow at the Feminist Foreign Policy Collaborative, writes in an opinion piece for Devex.
In the FfD discussions, gender equality arguments are framed in economic terms and negotiators are looking for alternative language to avoid terms like “gender equality” “diversity” and “inclusion,” she writes. Some commitments made in Addis Ababa at the last FfD forum are missing from the zero draft, but there are strategies for moving forward, three of which Woroniuk outlines.
Opinion: Gender equality is at risk in financing for development talks
See also: US pokes globalism in eye in women's rights talks at UN
What we’re reading
The Department of Government Efficiency takes over the U.S. African Development Foundation. [Devex]
Can diaspora bonds bridge Africa’s USAID funding gap? [The Banker]
Scoop: Brazil hammers out details of forest fund ahead of COP30. [Devex]
Funding cuts and culture wars: What the German election means for aid. [Devex Pro]
Update, March 17, 2025: This article has been updated to indicate details of EBRD’s sub-Saharan Africa expansion.
About the author
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.
