In the corridors of the World Bank’s financial operations center, the two distinct universes of Wall Street and Washington, D.C. collide, enabling the largest global development lending scheme to lift millions out of poverty from Europe to Asia.
Here, inside the World Bank Treasury department, fluorescent-lit desks holding up multiple Bloomberg terminal screens flash a parade of numbers in orange-on-black lettering that is iconic in the financial world. An intern peers at an Excel sheet as a veteran trader seamlessly holds multiple simultaneous chats about bond pricing. The space looks and sounds like a hedge fund.
But the artwork on the walls is distinct: Penciled caricatures, some decades old, extol the virtues of global development. Anti-poverty, pro-vaccine, and wildlife protection posters dot offices.