‘World Bank’s vision being redefined’

Reform will focus beyond poverty eradication to include work on climate, disease and fragility

- Gulveen Aulakh Puja Das

The World Bank's vision is being redefined to eradicate poverty on a "liveable planet" as part of ongoing reforms, its president Ajay Banga said on the sidelines of the New Delhi G20 summit, which has pledged to make multilateral lending work for poverty.

"There's a lot of work going on with the World Bank on the reform agenda. It starts from redefining the vision of the bank, to not just focus on poverty, although it's important, but to also include a liveable planet," Banga said.

'The idea is to eradicate poverty on a liveable planet and by doing that, we expand the aperture of our view to include climate, pandemics, fragility, things that we are living through, and these are intertwined with poverty alleviation-very difficult to segregate them," he said.

Banga, a former Mastercard executive chairman, noted the need for multilateral development banks to collaborate on climate and digital governance, besides including the private sector to facilitate investments into renewable energy in emerging markets.