The World Bank’s Development Committee and the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) International Monetary and Financial Committee held its annual spring meeting from 12-13 April 2003 in Washington, DC, to discuss issues related to poverty reduction, international economic development and finance.

The annual meetings provide a forum for international cooperation and enable the Bank and Fund to better serve their member countries. About 10,000 people attend the meetings, including some 3,500 representatives of the World Bank and the IMF member countries, roughly 1,000 representatives of the media, and more than 5,000 visitors and special guests drawn primarily from private business, the banking community and NGOs.
In a final meeting communiqué, the World Bank and the IMF renewed their commitment to the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and global efforts to reduce poverty. According to the communiqué, “Slower economic growth, the war in Iraq, and failure to make more substantive progress on the Doha Development Agenda add to the challenge of implementing the global development agenda. We [the World Bank and IMF] therefore strongly reaffirmed our commitment to the global effort needed to reduce poverty in developing and transition countries and achieve the MDG.”
“Agreements and commitments alone will not achieve the Millennium Development Goals,” said World Bank Chief Economist Nicholas Stern. “More actions and resources are needed,” he added. “The cost of achieving the goals is likely to run to at least an additional $50 billion a year from rich countries over and above the resources from developing countries themselves.”
According to a new World Bank report entitled “World Development Indicators,” global poverty can still be cut in half by 2015, if rich countries lower trade barriers and boost foreign aid, and poor countries invest more in the health and education of their citizens. A full version of the communiqué can be found at: http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/DCS/devcom.nsf/(communiquesm)/
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