World Bank
Prime Minister Mia Mottley of Barbados and Ajay Banga, president of the World Bank. Banga said last month that the World Bank would pause debt repayments for countries that were recently hit by a disaster.Kristy Sparow/Getty Images For Global Citizen
Optics and action at the World Bank
Almost one year ago, Al Gore called David Malpass, then president of World Bank, a “climate denier,” setting the wheels in motion for Malpass’s early exit. His replacement, Ajay Banga, has been in office for a mere six weeks.
How’s it going so far?
Banga, the former chief executive of Mastercard, seems to be having a ball. He kicked off a months-long world tour, recruited chief executives to join the bank’s new private investors cluband received the rock star treatment at the Global Citizen Concert in Paris. But beyond the spectacle, he has started to deliver, too.
Last month, at a global finance summit in Paris, he said that the World Bank would pause debt repayments for countries that were recently hit by a disaster.
Mia Mottley, the prime minister of Barbados and a champion of calls to reshape the global financial system, gave his praises at the Paris festival. She told a cheering crowd that developing countries had been waiting for the debt pause for years.
“Ajay, you’ve done it in 19 days,” she said. “And, if I could sing, I would tell you we’ve only just begun.”
Rishikesh Ram Bhandary, a climate finance expert at Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center, told me that the “ball is still very much in his court in terms of clearly articulating how he can transform the bank.”
Still, one thing is certain, he said: “There is a lot of enthusiasm and energy surrounding his presidency.” — Manuela Andreon