Tomorrow is the start of the 2025 World Bank and IMF annual meetings in Washington, D.C., and they are shaping up to be a pivotal point for global development. With aid budgets shrinking, debt distress climbing, and geopolitical divisions hardening, the pressure is on the world’s most powerful development finance institutions to prove they can deliver.
World Bank President Ajay Banga has put jobs at the top of the agenda. But does that focus mean a shift away from the ambitions of its “evolution roadmap” — which promised bold action on global public goods such as climate change? We’ll be watching how U.S. President Donald Trump’s return to the White House is shaping bank policy, and how that might create tension with other shareholders' objectives.
Some reforms have moved forward: faster project approvals, streamlined processes, balance sheet tweaks, and new tools to mobilize private capital. But much of the bank’s new lending capacity remains untapped, and critics say the pace of change has been too slow. The question now is whether the institution can break out of stealth mode and seize this moment.