More than 90 organisations have signed an open letter to World Bank President Ajay Banga and the Executive Directors calling for the Bank to clarify the future of its Climate Change Action Plan, which is due to expire on 30 June, without any clear successor.

Against a backdrop of war, aid cuts, mounting debt & austerity, the response from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) & the World Bank at this week's Spring Meetings risks deepening the global humanitarian crisis, unless there's urgent action on debt relief, adequate financing and governance reform.

In a joint letter to the International Monetary Fund's Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva and Executive Directors, a coalition of 125 civil society organisations reiterates a call to improve engagement and consultation processes with CSOs at the next review of the IMF Guidelines on Engagement with Civil Society. 

The outcome of this week's Annual Meetings of the World Bank and IMF show that the institutions are moving in the wrong direction. 

Next month, the European Investment Bank will begin deliberations of the second phase of its Climate Bank Roadmap. In a joint-letter 19 civil society organisations have urged the Board of Directors to ensure that a Just Transition is at the heart of this strategy.

The involvement of private finance in infrastructure and services provision is not new. However, the focus on leverage private finance has increased in recent decades, particularly after the adoption of the 2015 Addis Ababa Action Agenda (AAAA), at the Third UN Conference on Financing for Development (FfD). Despite that, the initiatives promoted have proved to be far from what is needed, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) seem increasingly out of reach. The current FfD process – as the only global space in which all countries have an equal voice – has the potential for transformational development in the global south. As the Fourth FfD Conference (FfD4) in Sevilla approaches, there is an opportunity for a thorough overhaul of private finance in development.

This week's Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank - during which the institutions have marked their 80th anniversary - has ended in an anticlimax.

This week G20 finance ministers, the IMF and the World Bank have again failed to take any meaningful action to deal with the deepening global debt crisis, continuing to term it ‘short-term liquidity challenges’.

One year ago, at the time of the Annual Meetings in Marrakech, WBG President Ajay Banga said “I don’t subscribe easily to buzzwords about how to do things”. This was in response to CSO concerns about the use of the ‘cascade approach’ to development – a phrase coined by the WBG seven years ago. In plainer English it means the WBG seeks to leverage private finance in support of development and climate projects. Today, ahead of the 2024 Annual Meetings, which mark the 80th anniversary of the institution, the World Bank Group says it aims “to create a future-ready World Bank Group.” This sounds like yet another buzzword to us.