WASHINGTON (AP) – Heads of state, finance leaders and activists from around the world will converge in Paris this week to seek ways to overhaul the world’s development banks – like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank – and help them weather a warmer and stormier world.
While restructuring debt and reducing poverty will be part of the summit today and tomorrow, climate will be the main driver, with representatives from developing nations in Africa, Asia and elsewhere having a prominent seat at the table.
The World Bank and IMF have been criticised for not factoring climate change into lending decisions and being dominated by wealthy countries like the United States (US) with the neediest nations most at risk of global warming left out of calling the shots. While those are the primary problems to solve, some doubt the splashy summit led by French President Emmanuel Macron will be able to take major strides to correct those challenges.
Still, the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact will draw roughly 50 heads of state and government – from Germany, Brazil, Senegal, Zambia and more – with more than 100 countries represented.
Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley will play a major role as a leader of the Bridgetown Initiative, a plan to reform development lending by freeing up money after climate disasters and targetting the higher borrowing costs and debt that developing nations face.
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Chinese Premier Li Qiang, new World Bank President Ajay Banga, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, and climate activists Greta Thunberg and Vanessa Nakate also are set to attend.
President of the Centre for Global Development think tank in Washington Masood Ahmed, isn’t expecting much concrete action from the gathering but a broad agreement that “we’ve got to think much bigger, much bolder. We need to be willing to change”.
It’s been hard, however, to summon the political will to spend taxpayer money to combat climate change, said Ahmed, a former senior official in both the IMF and World Bank. For example, “in the US, we don’t have in Congress today the kind of the support that you would want to have for a major global initiative on climate”, he said.
“That makes it harder for people to translate what is a sensible strategy, a necessary strategy, a critical set of actions into legislative action that puts money on the table.”
French organisers want to show they can keep fighting poverty and meet the challenges of climate change at the same time, said a top French official.
