The 2024 Spring Meetings of the World Bank Group (WBG) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) discussed how to become more ambitious and impact-oriented in their efforts to support poverty eradication, economic development, and aid effectiveness. Participants announced new initiatives on electricity access and health services, launched new financial tools, and made financial pledges.

The event, which convened from 19-21 April 2024 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 Committee’s Update to Governors titled, ‘From Vision to Impact: Implementing the World Bank Group Evolution.’ It lays out how the WBG is redoubling its focus on impact, speed, and efficiency in implementing its vision of “a world free of poverty on a livable planet,” endorsed at the 2023 Annual Meetings in Marrakech, Morocco. Participants reflected on the progress the WBG “has made in transforming itself, speeding up delivery, and working with partners to achieve greater scale.”

According to the Chair’s statement, the Development Committee remains firmly committed to “ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity on a livable planet in support of the [SDGs].” Governors also “reaffirmed [their] commitment to multilateralism and international cooperation by working better across [multilateral development banks (MDBs)] and with other partners to sustain economic progress, reduce inequality, enable access to basic services, and create a world free of poverty on a livable planet.”

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 reflects IMFC members’ emphasis on “the importance of international cooperation to improve the resilience of the global economy and the international monetary system.” He highlights members’ resolve to support climate and digital transitions, including artificial intelligence (AI), strengthen the global financial safety net, and address global debt vulnerabilities, among other priorities.

Initiatives announced during the Spring Meetings include:

• A partnership between the WBG and the African Development Bank Group (AfDB) to connect 300 million people to electricity by 2030;
• The WBG’s target to expand health services to 1.5 billion people;
• Pledges by 11 countries for the Portfolio Guarantee Platform, hybrid capital mechanism, and Livable Planet Fund totaling USD 11 billion; and
• A new co-financing platform, launched by a coalition of ten MDBs that will enable them to channel additional capital for development scale and impact.

The 2024 Annual Meetings of the WBG and IMF are scheduled for October in Washington, D.C. [IMF Spring Meetings Website] [WBG Spring Meetings Website]