“I don’t want to put the cart before the horse,” Banga told Reuters on his first trip abroad, to Jamaica and Peru. “I think a better bank is a big thing… And then I’ll earn the right to go back and ask for a bigger bank,” he said.
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen ruled out a capital increase during a congressional hearing in March, but with the caveat: “at this time.”
Germany’s development minister Svenja Schulze told the Financial Times that if the World Bank’s reforms are substantial and tangible, “Germany is ready to embark on a discussion on more financing.”
International development experts say the trillion-dollar annual financing needs for the transition to clean energy will require more capital from the World Bank and extensive financing from the private sector.
new mission
Banga said his first task in improving the 78-year-old institution is to speak to shareholders about a change in the lender’s mission statement to focus on eliminating poverty “on a livable planet.”
The bank’s current mission calls for ending extreme poverty in a generation and promoting shared prosperity. “What I mean by habitable is the climate, but also pandemics, and also fragility and food insecurity,” Banga said.
Its top two destinations, Jamaica and Peru, face climate threats while nearly a quarter of its population lives in poverty. “How do you eliminate poverty if you can’t breathe, you don’t have clean water, you’re afraid of COVID and you’re a refugee and you can’t eat?”
