2023-10-13 11:58:14
The leaders of the IMF and the World Bank (WB) called on Friday for additional financing from their shareholder states in order to better help certain countries fight poverty and climate change.
“We are facing a decline in progress in our fight once morest poverty,” lamented WB President Ajay Banga on the occasion of the annual meetings of Washington institutions, which are being held in Marrakech (Morocco), a first on African soil since 1973.
“We are facing an existential climate crisis, food insecurity, fragilities, a post-pandemic recovery that is in its early stages and we are all feeling the effects of conflict, well beyond the front lines” , he said in a speech delivered at the plenary session of the WB.
He certainly estimates that he can unlock some 150 billion in additional financing capacity during this decade. But he demanded more, in particular to supplement the International Development Association (IDA), the structure of the World Bank which helps the poorest countries.
“No amount of creative financial engineering will make up for the fact that we simply need more funding,” he argued.
He called for the next IDA bailout – which donor countries meet every three years – to be “the largest ever”.
The Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Kristalina Georgieva, for her part called “urgently” for a strengthening of the Fund via an increase in quotas – the money that member countries provide depending on the size of the their economy.
The IMF’s capacity to lend at zero interest to its poorest members must also be strengthened, she asked.
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