Background

The World Bank’s specific mandate of eradicating extreme poverty and promoting shared prosperity and its failure to achieve this mandate, together with the continuous denial of the climate challenges, have been at the heart of civil society proposals calling for its reform. The global context of perpetual crises including the ongoing pandemic, escalating external debt, war in Ukraine, inflation, climate change and geopolitical upheaval, and deepening processes of financialisation necessitate a new vision for the World Bank. Instead, the institutional response to the context has focused on the need to increase private sector-led financing for global south countries, including the Bridgetown agenda and the French presidency proposal for a New Financial Pact.

This panel will explore to what extent the World Bank’s recent ‘Evolution Roadmap’ and ‘Bridgetown Agenda’ proposals respond to the needs for international financial architecture reform, specifically addressing the increasing focus on climate as a public good and the needs to close the climate finance gap. Considering the rationale for the G7 push for MDB reform and the hasty appointment of World Bank’s new President in March 2023, the panel will discuss the impetus for change in the World Bank’s development model and international financial architecture governance reform.

The webinar

The panel aims to be an explanatory primer for the CSO network to explore the World Bank’s recent ‘Evolution Roadmap’ and ‘Bridgetown Agenda’ proposals. The focus of the panel would be an analysis of the current impetus for change and reform at the MDBs- also considering the hasty nomination of the World Bank’s new President in March 2023 as well as the upcoming Macron’s Financial Pact Summit which will materialise after the Spring.This capacity-building event will be useful for our network to better shape their advocacy in engaging with the World Bank.

Agenda and speakers

The event is moderated by Rebecca Thissen (CNCD 11.11.11)

• Celine Tan is Professor of International Economic Law at University of Warwick
• Mae Buenaventura is Senior Program Manager for Debt and Green Economic Building at APMDD, Asian Peoples' Movement on Debt and Development
• Rodolfo Lahoy Jr. is Policy, Communications & Training Team Head at IBON International

Rewatch the webinar:

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