10. Speeches of World Bank Presidents [collection under construction]

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Remarks by World Bank Group President David Malpass at the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting Held During the 2022 Annual Meetings

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-02-17) Malpass, David

This report discusses the remarks delivered by World Bank Group President David Malpass at the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting held during the 2022 annual meetings. He discusses: the world needs to be much better prepared to respond to pandemics, catastrophes, and health emergencies. Investing in prevention and preparedness now will save lives and, over the medium term, will save resources. Since the COVID-19 pandemic is not yet behind us, let me first say a few words about our efforts to support countries through this pandemic. I’ll then turn to the topic of preparedness and financing for future health crises. The World Bank Group’s 157 billion dollars response to COVID-19 was unprecedented. It was the fastest and largest growth in our history. This helped countries evaluate their health capacity gaps, finance their health systems, secure vaccines, and turn those vaccines into actual vaccinations in the poorest countries. As of last week, our financing has helped 67 countries purchase over half a billion doses. Doses closely connected. The doses are closely connected to our financing of country deployment programs and monitoring, through workforce training, public awareness campaigns, logistics, cold chain capacity, syringes, and testing kits. Preparedness and building for the future are core to the World Bank’s mission through comprehensive health projects. We are working to strengthen health systems in over 100 countries with an active portfolio totaling 30 billion dollars.
Remarks at the IDA20 Replenishment Meeting

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-12-15) Malpass, David

World Bank Group President David Malpass noted that Japan is now one of the largest contributors to IDA, a key partner in achieving development results at the global, regional, and country level. He mentioned that for more than 60 years, IDA has provided concessional development financing totaling more than US$458 billion to 114 countries to boost economic growth, reduce poverty and inequality, and improve people’s living conditions.  He highlighted that the World Bank’s crisis response to COVID-19 has been the largest in its history, and IDA responded with speed and scale to the unprecedented economic and health crises and committed US$56.9 billion between April 2020 and November 2021.  He expressed his appreciation to the IDA Borrower Representatives who have consistently offered their advice, providing a country lens on how the support can best be tailored to meet the needs and priorities of IDA countries. He spoke about the generous pledges that are matched by the most ambitious IDA policy package. He concluded by saying that cross-cutting issues are the foundational building blocks of this policy framework. These include crisis preparedness, which was introduced in IDA20 to build resilience in a world of more frequent crises with compounded effects, as well as ongoing emphasis on governance and institutions, debt sustainability, and digital infrastructure and interventions to foster economic and social inclusion.
Remarks at the COP26 B3W Event Co-Hosted by Presidents Joseph Biden and Ursula von der Leyen

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-11-02) Malpass, David

World Bank Group President David Malpass discussed how the World Bank Group can play a leading role in tackling climate change by bringing together all parties, by helping design the transitions, by quantifying the costs and benefits, by drawing in private sector investment to the bankable portions of projects, and by providing key portions of the funding, including IDA’s grant and zero-rate financing for the poorest countries. IDA has been a main source of funding and preparedness for vulnerable countries and explicitly supports climate action.
2021 Annual Meetings Press Conference

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-10-13) Malpass, David

World Bank Group President David Malpass spoke about the world suffering from a dramatically uneven recovery, and inequality worsening across country groups. The highest priority is to secure access to vaccines and speed up shots in arms. He explained that the World Bank Group is working as hard as it can 24/7 to expand the number of doses as soon as it can get, and delivery schedules from the advanced economies and from the manufacturers. Regarding the IDA20 replenishment in December, African heads of state have already called for donors to be ambitious in their support for IDA’s mission. He spoke about 1) making public spending more efficient in a country like Mexico; 2) climate finance provided to the developing countries should be doubled in the next few years; 3) opportunities presented by climate change and to support climate private sector investment in Africa; 4) the role of young people in global climate action; 5) boosting health systems and making them more resilient to shocks like COVID-19 in MENA region; 6) the pandemic impact on India’s poor; 7) measures to save companies in difficulty during COVID-19; 8) lessons that developing countries draw from this health crisis, particularly on the social level; and 9) support to low-income countries efforts against pandemic.
Remarks at the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting Held during the 2021 Annual Meetings

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-10-13) Malpass, David

World Bank Group President David Malpass discussed the Bank’s new International Debt Statistics (IDS) report, published on Monday, showing the debt of low-income countries is 860 billion U.S. dollars, up 12 percent. Turning to vaccines, developing countries need 5 billion more doses to vaccinate 70 percent of their population by the middle of next year. Some urgent steps are needed: (i) swapping near-term vaccine delivery schedules with COVAX and AVAT; (ii) closing the gap between pledges and deliveries; and (iii) eliminating trade and regulatory barriers. Finance and health ministers in developing countries should also seek contracts that include early delivery schedules.
Remarks at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference: Aligning Finance and Building Capacity for an Ecological Civilization

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-10-12) Malpass, David

World Bank Group President David Malpass discussed biodiversity and climate change being closely interlinked, with terrestrial and marine ecosystems serving as critically important carbon sinks. At the same time climate change acts as a direct driver of biodiversity and ecosystem services loss. The World Bank has financed biodiversity conservation around the world, including over 116 million hectares of Marine and Coastal Protected Areas, 10 million hectares of Terrestrial Protected Areas, and over 300 protected habitats, biological buffer zones and reserves. The COVID pandemic, biodiversity loss, climate change are all reminders of how connected we are. The recovery from this pandemic is an opportunity to put in place more effective policies, institutions, and resources to address biodiversity loss.
Remarks at Media Roundtable during Annual Meetings 2021

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-10-11) Malpass, David

World Bank Group President David Malpass discussed a broad range of development issues, including the economic outlook, growth, vaccines, debt, climate, and trade. World Bank financing operations will be addressed at the annual meeting as well as our climate change action plan, which aims to help reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and improve adaptation. We expect global growth of 5.7 percent in 2021 and 4.4 percent in 2022, these are very similar to our projections in the June Global Economic Prospects report. Incoming high-frequency data point to slowing momentum in global activity amid persistent supply chain bottlenecks and COVID-19 surges. Moreover, the global recovery remains dramatically uneven. The outlook is challenging for much of the developing world with lagging vaccination rates, rising inflation, limited policy support, too few jobs, and shortages that extend to food, water, and electricity. As of mid-2021, over half of IDA countries, those are the world’s poorest countries, are in external debt distress or at high risk of it. A comprehensive approach, including debt reduction, swifter restructuring and more transparency is needed to help countries assess and manage their external debt risks and work toward sustainable debt levels and terms. These are fundamental to supporting health systems, education, and infrastructure and creating growth, investment, and prosperity. Enhanced and accelerated implementation of the Common Framework will be critical in achieving this much-needed debt transparency and sustainability.
Remarks to the Heads of State of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-08-18) Malpass, David

Bank Group President David Malpass said that deep structural reforms are needed now more than ever to secure social cohesion and put the region on a sustainable and more inclusive development path. The World Bank Group has maintained a long-standing partnership with Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) and its individual members, providing a range of support including investment programs, budget support, advisory services, and technical assistance. The World Bank is partnering with the African Union to support the Africa Vaccine Acquisition Trust (AVAT) with resources to purchase and deploy single-dose vaccines for up to four hundred million people across Africa. Debt transparency and sustainability will be vital to a sustained recovery and attracting new investment. He spoke about two critical paths to help strengthen implementation of reforms and policies going forward. He concluded by saying that this day's summit and its strong political endorsement for the next phase of regional structural reforms is thus critical for the emergence of a more sustainable and more inclusive growth path for CEMAC in the future.
Transcript of Media Roundtable for East Asia and the Pacific

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-07-15) Malpass, David

David Malpass, President of the World Bank, remarked that the immediate priority for developing countries is widespread access to Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccines that match their deployment programs. in response to the sharp increase in demand, the World Bank has increased financing for vaccines to twenty billion dollars globally over the next eighteen months. He spoke about providing grants to the countries that are most in need, including fragile and small states. The World Bank is working jointly with the IMF in order to use the Common Framework in order to provide debt relief for countries and create the fiscal space they need. The new World Bank climate change action plan is going to create a shift in paradigm in order to connect development and investment and to focus on priorities in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Remarks at the Venice Climate Conference

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-07-11) Malpass, David

World Bank Group President David Malpass spoke about the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and the devastating economic losses. The World Bank Group is providing maximum support to developing economies to respond to the crisis, and working to help them recover in ways that will be sustainable, greener and more prosperous. The Bank Group financing is aligning with the Paris Agreement goals. The Group will help client countries in their efforts to develop and implement their Nationally Determined Contributions and Long-Term Strategies. The Group is enhancing core analytical products such as the recently launched Country Climate and Development Reports and a facility on climate-informed Public Expenditure Reviews. He expressed the need for diagnostics, and a data-driven approach to help prioritize action. There is also need for a parallel effort to protect our natural capital and biodiversity, so that solutions work for people and the planet. IFC and MIGA that are mobilizing private sector financing and helping companies lower their emissions.