Online Media Briefing Center (OMBC) news for accredited journalists
Highlights
The Government of Poland has pledged to increase its contribution to the World Bank’s IDA by 100% compared to its previous IDA contributions, demonstrating its continued dedication to international development.
1.2 billion people face life-changing risks through exposure to at least one critical climate hazard, such as heatwaves, flooding, hurricanes, and drought. However, a new report from the World Bank Group outlines how faster development and sustainable economic growth can reduce climate change-related economic and quality of life losses.
The World Bank Group today took the first steps toward implementing Gender Strategy 2030, announcing a set of actions and concrete goals that aim to boost economic opportunities for more women. The targets, unveiled at a flagship event during the 2024 World Bank Group Annual Meetings, will focus on use of broadband, social protection, and access to capital.
This is a 37% increase compared to the previous IDA replenishment cycle and underscores Spain’s continued commitment to sustainable development worldwide. This raises Spain’s total contribution to over €5 billion since IDA’s creation. The announcement was made on the sidelines of the World Bank Group-IMF Annual Meetings and comes weeks ahead of the final 21st replenishment (IDA21) meeting in December.
Global commodity prices are set to tumble to a five-year low in 2025 amid an oil glut that is so large that it is likely to limit the price effects even of a wider conflict in the Middle East, according to the World Bank’s latest Commodity Markets Outlook. Even so, overall commodity prices will remain 30% higher than they were in the five years before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The guarantee falls under a new Portfolio Guarantee Platform with leveraging ability that allows Japan’s $1 billion commitment to enable new funding of $6 billion over 10 years. The platform permits shareholders with high credit ratings to step in if a borrower fails to pay back a loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), a member of the World Bank Group.
The new approach arrives as four trends are fundamentally reshaping the agribusiness landscape: climate change, innovations in finance, digitalization, and solutions to fragmentation. It also aims to take advantage of demand for food that is set to increase by 60 percent in the coming decades, and respond to a critical need for jobs in emerging markets.
At today’s feeble pace, it could take more than a century to eliminate poverty as it is defined for nearly half the world – people who live on less than $6.85 per day, according to the World Bank’s new Poverty, Prosperity, and Planet Report. The report offers the first post-pandemic assessment of global progress toward eradicating poverty and boosting shared prosperity on a livable planet.
