The Development Committee, Joint Ministerial Committee of the Boards of Governors of the Bank and the Fund on the Transfer of Real Resources to Developing Countries, met on 24 April, marking the 111th meeting of the group. In the tumultuous context of this year’s Spring meetings, marked by weeks of speculation over a possible US withdrawal from the World Bank and IMF, dispelled by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s speech asserting an expanded US role through an America First, and an increasingly terse international financial system (see Dispatch Springs 2025), no communiqué was released for yet another year. Instead, a statement was released by the Chair, Elisabeth Svantesson, Sweden’s Minister for Finance, reflecting the views of the majority of the group and providing clarity on priorities and moments of consensus within the chaos.
The Chair’s statement begins by stating the priorities and key issues agreed on by shareholders, noting that action must be taken to achieve “sustainable and resilient growth, promote macroeconomic stability, foster private sector investment, create more and better jobs, and boost productivity.” However, the group acknowledged the breadth and severity of issues developing countries face in achieving growth and prosperity, including “debt burdens, fragility and conflict, displacement and migration, trade frictions, natural disasters, environmental degradation, climate shocks, and food insecurity.”
Do the job right
The statement is widely in line with the current priorities and focuses of the World Bank under Banga’s leadership. An intense focus on jobs was laid out in a plenary meeting during last year’ Annual Meetings (see Dispatch Annuals 2024) and was the primary topic of promotion by the Bank this Springs. The statement stresses the importance of job creation largely in line with the Bank’s vision: to create productivity, to make use of untapped ‘human capital’ of “women and youth” and to include the private sector. Disappointingly, whilst the statement calls for “more and better” jobs, it does not align with longstanding calls for the Bank to adopt the International Labour Organisation’s ‘decent work’ definition. The statement does not call for more detail on types of jobs – formal and informal – the essential economic value of unpaid and domestic care, or the promotion of regulations or laws relating to minimum wages, insurance, unionisation, or social protections like maternity or paternity. The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) critiqued this approach in a statement reacting to the Springs focus on jobs, noting “a focus on quality jobs grounded in transformative levels of investment and strong protections for workers’ rights.”
Climate and gender withering
Likely one of the most anticipated aspects of the statement, is the extent to which it responds, reacts or contrasts to points of contention created by the United States in recent months. In light of the US administration’s promotion of regressive and extreme right-wing positions in recent executive orders (see Observer Spring 2025) and across other fora including the United Nations, there has been a notable and deliberate scaling back of reference to climate and gender whatsoever by the World Bank this Springs (see Dispatch Springs 2025). The statement remains strong in noting the importance of climate issues in the opening statement and throughout, noting the 45 per cent commitment for climate finance and the extension of the Climate Change Action Plan to fiscal year 2026. However, in line with the Bank’s current vision and perhaps in a taste of things to come with the US as a testing shareholder, the majority of the focus is on energy access, including “potential support for nuclear energy”, and a call for the Bank to work with the African Development Bank to further Mission 300. This stance fails to address civil society’s concerns over the mission’s private sector focus and its focus on gas, with the discussion paper for the meeting noting that in some cases “gas may offer the best option” (see Observer Winter 2024).
On gender, the statement also supports the Bank’s ‘economic empowerment’ focus of recent years, talking mostly about women and girls (with no reference to gender diversities) in economic terms that focus on their human capital value, and in the value of financial products relating to gender “that underpin private sector growth.” It is deeply disappointing to see no reference to the increasingly dangerous political environment for women, girls and LGBTQI+ people’s human rights, (see Observer Spring 2025) or to the importance of protecting essential public services in the face of privatisation and austerity measures (see Observer Spring 2025).
Elsewhere, despite the statement’s initial reference to debt, a highly important topic, the only further reference was a later call for multilateral cooperation, noting “we call on the WBG to continue collaboration with all development partners, including with the IMF on debt sustainability, transparency, and vulnerabilities.” Furthering on cooperation, the statement did notably call for the Bank to work with the United Nations to “deliver the building blocks to improve the lives of those most in need, including healthcare, education, jobs and skills development, food security and nutrition, clean air, and clean water”, and pointed to the UN Fourth International Conference on Finance for Development in Seville as an opportunity for the Bank to focus on ‘results’. Civil society have been calling for both the World Bank and IMF to acknowledge the FfD4 space as an opportunity to align with the wider international financial architecture amidst tensions (see Observer Spring 2025).
