While South Koreans protested their president’s stunning imposition of martial law on Tuesday night in front of the country’s National Assembly building, top development finance officials were checking into their hotels just across Seoul’s central Han River.
On Wednesday, under intense pressure, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol lifted the martial law declaration. On Thursday, negotiations began on the 21st replenishment of the World Bank’s concessional fund for the world’s lowest-income countries, a decision made every three years.
And on Friday, officials announced $23.7 billion in contributions to the International Development Association, which provides grants and low-interest loans to 78 low-income countries. This is a 0.8% increase from the last replenishment in 2022 of $23.5 billion but falls short of the $27 billion that some advocates had hoped for.
About the author
Jesse Chase-Lubitz
Jesse Chase-Lubitz covers climate change and multilateral development banks for Devex. She previously worked at Nature Magazine, where she received a Pulitzer grant for an investigation into land reclamation. She has written for outlets such as Al Jazeera, Bloomberg, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, and The Japan Times, among others. Jesse holds a master’s degree in Environmental Policy and Regulation from the London School of Economics.
