Jubilee's comments on the Evolution Roadmap
Jubilee USA Network is an alliance of more than 75 US organizations and 750 faith communities working with 50 Jubilee global partners. Jubilee USA builds an economy that serves, protects and promotes the participation of the most vulnerable.
We appreciate the opportunity to submit these comments on the World Bank Group’s Evolution Process and its Roadmap (“Evolution Process” or “the Roadmap”).
The Evolution Roadmap comes at a moment of growing understanding about the need to make better use of multilateral development banks for financing development and the response to global challenges.
The pandemic shock reversed poverty reduction and human development progress globally. The Russia Ukraine war, climate change and hunger are among the crises that the world faces and that hit developing countries worst, due to pre-existing vulnerabilities. Developing countries suffer these shocks amidst reduced fiscal space. The slowest 5-year growth in decades, high debts and rising interest rates combine to limit their capacity to respond and, especially, protect their most vulnerable.
Multilateral development banks (MDBs) like the World Bank have extraordinary potential to use turn capital contributions from shareholders into development finance interventions several-fold their volume. They have an unparalleled capacity to offer low-cost, long-term funds and play a particularly important role in times of crises, when they provide countercyclical and emergency funding.
In the Roadmap World Bank shareholders endorsed, they signaled their intention to evolve the institution across three dimensions: mission and vision, operations, and financing.