The World Bank and International Monetary Fund annual meetings this week come as bilateral aid budgets are dropping and multilateral institutions face mounting pressure to step in to fill gaps, support countries, and address looming debt challenges.
At the same time, both institutions are wrestling with internal change and grappling with how to balance the demands of their largest shareholder — the United States — especially when those demands conflict with the requests of other shareholders.
This is not an era of stability and predictability. As IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva put it in a speech last week: “Buckle up: uncertainty is the new normal and it is here to stay.”