Lede

U.S. Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, has called for additional reforms to be made this year by the World Bank in order to help developing countries address climate change and other global crises.

Summary

• Janet Yellen has urged the World Bank to undertake more reforms this year to enable the Bank to better support developing countries in dealing with climate change and other global crises.
• Yellen has hosted a roundtable discussion with global finance officials to discuss ways to continue evolving the World Bank and other multilateral development banks, and to explore how they can better assist developing countries to meet global challenges, even as they work to reduce extreme poverty.
• Yellen has stated that the reforms would sharpen the mission of the World Bank, ensuring that it can provide effective assistance to countries to end extreme poverty, enhance shared prosperity, and build resilience.
• The reforms are expected to focus on integrating regional and global challenges into the World Bank's country diagnostic reports and country engagement, and to expand the focus on raising additional private capital.
• Yellen has hailed the balance sheet changes that could add up to $50 billion in the bank's financing capacity over 10 years, while protecting its AAA credit rating and long-term financial stability.
• While giving no specifics in the prepared remarks, Yellen has stated that the rest of the year will be used to undertake additional reforms through a staged implementation approach that can be agreed upon by the Board and implemented on a rolling basis.
• Upcoming events such as the Summit for a New Global Financial Pact hosted by France in June, the Group of 20 Leaders’ Summit in India in September, the annual meetings of the World Bank and IMF in Morocco in October, and the United Nations COP28 climate conference in Dubai in November and December could be leveraged to keep the momentum strong for the evolution of the World Bank.
• Outgoing World Bank President, David Malpass, Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Japanese Finance Minister Shun'ichi Suzuki are among those expected to attend Yellen's roundtable.