The World Bank is weighing a potential one-time capital increase, along with the ambitious idea that donor nations create a new concessional lending fund to address severe development challenges across all its client countries, according to a reform roadmap sent to shareholders.
The goal is to accelerate efforts to tackle climate change, increase the lender’s capacity to fight poverty, and boost support to middle-income countries — including doing regional projects on cross-border challenges, in what would be a huge shift for the bank.
Notably, the 20-page evolution roadmap obtained by Devex says the bank’s mission needs to more clearly reflect a focus on “global public goods,” such as climate change and pandemic preparedness. This would also mean stepping up support to climate-vulnerable countries, even if their income levels place them above the poverty lines for the most concessional lending.