The 2025 Spring Meetings of the World Bank Group (WBG) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) highlighted the role of jobs in building self-sufficient economies, creating demand for goods, growing prosperity, and strengthening global security by tackling the root causes of crime, fragility, and mass migration. Participants discussed the state of the global economy, heard regional economic updates, and announced new initiatives and financial pledges.

The Spring Meetings, which convened from 21-26 April 2025 in Washington, D.C., US, included meetings of the joint Development Committee and the IMF’s International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC), as well as numerous seminars, regional briefings, press conferences, and other events focused on the global economy, international development, and the world’s financial markets.

Discussions in the Development Committee centered around the document titled, ‘Jobs: The Path to Prosperity.’ This document includes updates on, inter alia: how the WBG is continuing to evolve to respond to the challenges of a constantly changing world; its efforts to equip people for the jobs of the future and to enable markets to allow businesses to create more and better jobs; and the challenge of helping countries build dynamic private sectors that convert growth into local jobs.

The document outlines the WBG’s three-part approach to private sector development and job creation, consisting of:

• Establishing the infrastructure foundation for jobs, including healthcare, education, skills training, clean air and water, transportation, and energy;
• Working with governments to strengthen governance and support business-enabling policies and a predictable regulatory environment to grow the private sector; and
• Mobilizing private capital.

According to the Chair’s statement, which “reflects the views of the majority of Committee Members,” decisive policy action is needed “to accelerate sustainable and resilient growth, promote macroeconomic stability, foster private sector investment, create more and better jobs, and boost productivity,” for “a world free of poverty on a livable planet.” The statement notes that in the coming decade, over a billion young people in developing countries will reach working age. Recognizing that development resources are becoming increasingly scarce, the statement calls on the WBG “to establish the infrastructure foundation for jobs, support economic and governance reforms, mobilize private capital, and encourage greater domestic resource mobilization in client countries.”

The Development Committee, formally known as the Joint Ministerial Committee of the Boards of Governors of the Bank and the Fund on the Transfer of Real Resources to Developing Countries, is a WBG/IMF ministerial forum for building intergovernmental consensus on development issues.

The IMFC Chair’s statement underscores the need for “[c]omprehensive and well calibrated, well sequenced, and well communicated reforms and policy actions… to boost private sector-led growth, productivity, and job creation.”

Announcements made during the Spring Meetings include:

• The launch of the next phase of the Private Sector Investment Lab, with expanded membership and a focus on job creation;
• Ireland increasing its pledge to the International Development Association (IDA) by 33% to EUR 141.4 million, bolstering its commitment to support the world’s poorest countries; and
• Italy boosting its financial support to IDA by around 25% and signing an agreement with the World Bank to advance sustainable development in Africa.

The 2025 Annual Meetings of the WBG and IMF are scheduled for October in Washington, D.C. [IMF 2025 Spring Meetings Website] [WBG 2025 Spring Meetings Website] [WBG Press Release]