Redouble efforts to end absolute poverty: World Bank

The 188-member Development Committee supported Dr. Kim’s vision of a World Bank Group that focuses on impact, provides evidence-based assistance & and promotes global public goods, said the committees communiqué at the close of the  bank’s Annual Meeting in Tokyo, Japan. meetings.

“We still live in a world that has more than one billion people living in absolute poverty,” Dr. Kim said at the closing press conference. “We must all work to make sure that the impressive gains in Latin America, Africa, and Asia over the past generation are not lost now. In just the last few years, growth from developing countries accounted for more than half of global growth.”

A day earlier, Dr. Kim outlined his plan to transform the bank into a solutions bank that will use evidence and experience to tackle development problems and also establish ambitious targets for eradicating poverty and boosting shared prosperity, among other measures to modernize the institution.

Dr. Kim acknowledged as the Meetings opened that we are in challenging times, marked by high and volatile food prices, weak growth in high income countries, and slowing growth in developing countries, which had been the engine of growth in the world economy.

In its communiqué, the committee called on the bank to work with other organizations to accelerate efforts to help the African Sahel, where hunger threatens the lives of 19 million people and the stability of the region. The response should bring solutions that enable the region to permanently escape the cycle of emergency aid, and reach a more resilient and sustainable future in the medium term.

Food security and food price volatility remain persistent threats to development in general and need more attention, the committee added.

Donors meeting on the sidelines of the Annual Meetings made pledges to the Global Agricultural and Food Security Programme, launched by the World Bank in 2008 at the request of the G20.

The United States pledged to contribute an additional $1 to the fund for every $2 contributed by other donors (up to a total US contribution of $475 million), attracting $30 million contributions each from Japan and the Republic of Korea, with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation also indicating it would double its commitment.

These new commitments are critical to our efforts to end hunger, said Dr. Kim. The World Bank Group must also continue to help countries strengthen conditions for job growth. Recent financial crises mean fewer jobs where millions are needed, said the committee. The Banks private sector arm IFC and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency will be especially crucial in supporting the private sector, it said, and encouraged the Bank Group to build on the work of the  2013 World Development Report on Jobs, was released in early this month.