Banga takes office as civil society urges him to invert the Cascade and ensure the Bank’s development model is fit for purpose.
The G24 communiqué of the 2023 Spring Meetings left no doubt about the gravity of the state of global affairs, including rising extreme poverty, food insecurity, migration and forced displacement.
Lack of consensus over Ukraine conflict meant Development Committee once again failed to agree a communiqué, with split also emerging over sources of funding for Bank’s expanded mission.
Despite pressing global issues, including a mounting debt crisis in low- and middle-income countries, the G20 failed to release a communique following the meeting of its finance ministers on 13 April at the World Bank and IMF Spring Meetings.
The IMFC again did not issue a communiqué as it could not agree on language on the war in Ukraine. A chair’s statement was issued in lieu of the communiqué and emphasised the resilience of the global safety net system, better than projected conditions and concerns about significant challenges.
V20 called for substantive debt relief and increased concessional financing to help break vicious cycle of debt and Loss and Damage, and spur ‘climate-positive development’.
Spring Meetings unlikely to deliver structural reforms required to respond to worsening polycrisis, as Global North-driven World Bank reform set to divert attention from poverty and inequality and geopolitical tensions dampen hopes of new SDR allocation and IMF quota reform.
On April 15th 2023 a whole-day event will bring together concerned organisations and individuals from around the globe, to debate urgent reforms of the BWI’s governance structures required to support an adequate global response to the climate, inequality and debt crises, and to avoid the fragmentation of the multilateral system.
New calls for SDR reform reveal acute need of financing for low- and middle-income countries to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
Marrakech working group calls on the BWIs to cancel the debt, stop imposing austerity and ensure a just energy transition.
Notes from Civil Society Policy Forum panel on 12 April titled "IFI reform, Bridgetown & climate finance: Critical civil society perspectives."
Notes from Civil Society Policy Forum event on April 14 2023 titled "Voices of the Global South: Taxation and polycrisis"
Notes from the CSPF panel "Time to get Macro? Gendered effects of World Bank macroeconomic policy amidst IFI reform" on Friday the 14th of April 2023.
Notes from the Civil Society Policy From on 13 April titled "Navigating Africa’s debt conundrum amid multiple crisis: Looking beyond the G20 Common Framework."
Notes from Civil Society Policy From event from April 12 2023, titled "IMF strategy on social spending: New direction or Band-Aid?"
Notes from the CSPF on 12 April titled "Protecting biodiversity in a biodiversity crisis."
As the world celebrates the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is time the IMF’s shareholders use the opportunities provided by the anniversary and growing calls for reforms to the international financial architecture to redesign the IMF’s governance structures and programmes to ensure they are consistent with the commitments outlined in 1948 and with international human rights law.
