by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
Washington : US President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced that he has chosen David Malpass, undersecretary for international affairs at the US Treasury Department, as the US candidate for the next president of the World Bank.
Calling Malpass a “very extraordinary man,” Trump said in a statement at the White House that he launched a “broad search for replacement” for Jim Yong Kim, the former World Bank chief who abruptly resigned in early January and stepped down on Friday.
“I knew that David is the right person to take this incredibly important job,” Trump added, reports Xinhua news agency.
The president said that Malpass “has been a strong advocate for accountability at the World Bank,” and that “he has fought to ensure financing is focused on the places and projects that truly need assistance, including people living in extreme poverty.”
Malpass will have to be approved by the World Bank’s board of executive directors to lead the international development lender.
Following Trump’s remarks, Malpass, who has criticised the World Bank before, thanked the president for selecting him to lead “the world’s premier development institution.”
Highlighting the $13 billion capital increase and other reforms that the World Bank shareholders endorsed in April 2018, Malpass said, “With shareholders and dedicated staff, there is a great opportunity now to implement these constructive reforms that will lead to faster growth and greater prosperity.”
Candidates picked by Washington, the World Bank’s largest shareholder with 16 per cent of its voting power, have all ended up assuming the leadership post since the institution’s inception in 1944.
This long-held tradition has put the credibility of the organisation into question, given that emerging markets’ and developing economies’ total contributions to global economic growth have far outweighed those of the advanced economies in recent years.
Kim faced challenges from nominees from Colombia and Nigeria in the 2012 race.
Malpass’s skepticism about the role of the bank and multilateralism has raised concerns within the international development community over his merit, as the World Bank said in a statement in January that the candidates for president should have “a firm commitment to and appreciation for multilateral cooperation.”
Responding to those concerns, a senior Trump administration official said that Malpass, in his capacity as Treasury undersecretary for international affairs, have engaged consructively in a number of multilateral settings worldwide.
“I think it’s fair to say that David has been quite constructive in helping to reform and be effective in the existing multilateral order,” the official added.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
Ivanka Trump
Washington : Ivanka Trump, US President Donald Trump’s daughter and senior adviser, will help choose the new World Bank President, the White House has said.
Jessica Ditto, a White House spokeswoman, said on Monday that Ivanka Trump was asked because “she’s worked closely with the World Bank’s leadership for the past two years”, The New York Times reported.
Ivanka Trump, who had been rumoured to be a contender for the position herself, will not be a candidate, Ditto said.
But she will assist the Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, and the acting White House Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, in choosing a successor to Jim Yong-kim, the current president of the World Bank who announced his resignation last week.
Administration officials are expected to begin the interview process for the job on Tuesday.
The White House did not provide any names of contenders.
Ivanka Trump, Mnuchin and Mulvaney will make recommendations to the President, who will nominate a candidate for the position. Member countries of the World Bank will then vote on the nominee.
Traditionally, the American President’s pick is accepted and Europe chooses the leader of the International Monetary Fund because both institutions were founded during World War II.
Jim, a former Dartmouth College president and a global health expert, was selected for the post by former President Barack Obama in 2012.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
By Arul Louis,
United Nations : World Bank President Jim Yong Kim has announced that he is stepping down as the head of the premier anti-poverty institution putting the likely choice of its future leadership in the hands of US President Donald Trump, a sceptic of international development.
Trump’s role is expected reinvigorate challenges to Washington’s monopoly on appointing the Bank’s head.
Announcing his decision on Monday, Kim said in a tweet: “It’s been the greatest privilege I could have ever imagined to lead the dedicated staff of this great institution to bring us closer to a world that is finally free of poverty.”
Kim, 59, who is dropping out 19 months into his second term on February 1, would be joining a private company and focus on infrastructure investments in developing countries, the Bank said.
The Bank’s CEO Kristalina Georgieva will become the interim president till a successor to Kim is appointed.
As the largest share-holder, the US by tradition appoints the head of the Bank, while Europeans determine the chief of the International Monetary Fund.
Kim was nominated for the job by former President Barack Obama in 2012.
Before Trump’s election, Kim was hastily re-appointed in September 2016 to a second term that began in July 2017 with an eye on pre-empting a possible Trump nominee getting the job.
Now, however, Trump will get an opportunity to nominate the Bank’s head.
Trump’s role will resurrect and strengthen challenges to the post-World War II model of the leadership of the 189-member bank that has always been determined by the US .
Already the US nominee was challenged for the first time in 2012 by two contenders.
Colombian economist Jose Antonio Ocampo Gaviria eventually withdrew from the race, while Nigeria’s then-Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala lost when the Bank’s directors rubber-stamped Kim’s appointment.
Now there will be robust demands for reconsidering the US leadership of the Bank and stronger non-American contenders for the job.
Kim, a South Korea-born US citizen, was an unusual leader for the Bank: He was a medical doctor by training, a specialist in public health and an academic with a Harvard doctorate in anthropology who had led the Ivy League Dartmouth College.
But his background in health was a plus for the Bank’s mission of fighting poverty and promoting development.
Under his leadership, the Bank adopted in tandem with the UN the goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030 and focusing on the bottom 40 per cent of the population in the developing world.
The Bank’s International Development Association, which funds programmes in the least developed countries, achieved two record replenishments during his tenure, the last one in 2016 for $75 billion.
Last April, the Bank also increased its capital by $13 billion with the unexpected support of the Trump administration.
Kim also pushed the Bank’s cooperation with the private sector for financing development in the developing world, particularly in the areas of climate change and infrastructure.
China, though a part of the World Bank, has thrown a challenge to it by setting up its own development banking institutions.
The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), founded in 2016 is one of those institutions and several countries including India, Germany, Britain and South Korea have joined it.
(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in and followed on Twitter @arulouis)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Banking, Economy, Finance, Markets, News
New Delhi : The World Bank Group (WBG) on Friday approved its largest country program for India with a likely assistance of $25-30 billion by fiscal 2021-22 to help India’s transition to a higher middle-income country.
“With a fast growing economy, global stature, and its unique experience of lifting the highest number of poor out of poverty in the past decades, India is well-positioned to become a high middle-income country by 2030,” World Bank South Asia Vice President Hartwig Schafer said.
The WBG Board endorsed a new Country Partnership Framework (CPF) for India aimed at supporting India’s transition by addressing its key development priorities — resource efficient and inclusive growth, job creation and building its human capital.
“The Group expects to deliver $25-30 billion during this CPF period, ending in FY 2022,” the multilateral lending agency said in a statement.
India, which has strong collaboration with Group’s institutions, is the largest client of International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD). As of mid-September 2018, total World Bank assistance stood at $27.2 billion representing 104 projects.
At the end of July 2018, International Finance Corporation’s (IFC) India portfolio contained 281 projects, amounting to a committed exposure of $6.4 billion.
“This CPF charts a path for how the World Bank, IFC and MIGA (Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency), will leverage their relative strengths to deliver stronger development outcomes for this dynamic country, half of whose population is under the age of 25,” Schafer said.
India’s Economic Affairs Secretary S.C. Garg complemented the bank for aligning the CPF with India’s development and investment objectives, the statement said.
The WBG will focus on promoting a resource efficient growth path, mainly in the use of land and water, to remain sustainable; enhancing competitiveness and job creation; and investing in health, education and skills to improve human capital.
It will also address the challenge of air pollution, jobs for women, raising the resilience of financial sector and investing in early years of children’s development. It will harness new technology in all spheres.
The CPF highlights the shift from a “lending” to a “leveraging bank”, emphasizing the growing potential and need to draw in capital markets in the financing of development priorities, the World Bank statement said.
Complementing transformational national programs, the bank will also develop strategic state partnerships to address state-specific development priorities.
“The future of India lies in the states of India. The country’s transition to high middle-income status will be determined in large part by the effectiveness of India’s federal compact,” said Junaid Ahmad, Country Director, World Bank India.
The CPF also emphasises on India’s global leadership role in promoting renewable energy and disaster resilient infrastructure development through its “Lighthouse India” initiative. India’s experience will help countries in Africa and Central Asia, it said.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate finance, Finance, News
Shimla : The World Bank has approved in principle a financial assistance of Rs 929.89 crore for a water supply and sewerage project for the state capital, Himachal Pradesh Urban Development and Country Planning Minister Sarween Chaudhary said on Thursday.
The final negotiation meeting for loan sanction will be held on October 24. The assistance will be made as a development policy loan, she said in a written reply in the Assembly.
There are six sources of drinking water supply to Shimla town with a total water supply capacity of 54 million litres per day (MLD). These included Gumma and Giri.
Officials told IANS that Shimla faced one of its worst water crises for weeks in June, sending locals on the warpath and forcing tourists to cut short their stay.
Replying to a question of Congress’ first-time legislator Vikramaditya Singh, the minister said that to ensure regular supply of drinking water, particularly during summer, there is need to augment the Gumma water source from the Sutlej river and construct storage dams on the Giri river.
Another step to meet the water requirement would be to instal filter units in 13 ‘bouries’ or natural water bodies here to ensure water for non-potable uses.
Civic body officials blame Shimla’s water shortage to leaks in the distribution network, a significant portion of which was laid during the British rule, and diminishing water resources due to over-exploitation.
Facing flak from the high court, which had monitored the water situation on a day-to-day basis, the Municipal Corporation had disconnected the water connections of over 40 hotels for their failure to clear the pending arrears.
Planned by the British for a maximum population of 16,000, Shimla — now with a population of nearly 2,00,000 — requires 42 MLD of water.
According to officials, the city is getting 30-32 MLD on an average every day and the residents are getting water once in three-four days in summer.
—IANS
