Publication:
Remarks by World Bank Group President David Malpass at the 2022 Nordic Baltic Governors Meeting

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Files in English
English PDF (67.37 KB)
92 downloads
English Text (10.46 KB)
26 downloads
Published
2022-06-09
ISSN
Date
2022-07-26
Editor(s)
Abstract
These remarks were delivered by World Bank Group President David Malpass at the 2022 Nordic Baltic Governors Meeting on June 9, 2022. He spoke about the following: war in Ukraine; the World Bank Group is responding, with increased financial support to FCV countries, and with more staff on the ground. Addressing the challenges of fragility, conflict and violence requires strengthened international cooperation and deeper collaboration with governments, with partners such as the UN, with civil society, and the affected populations themselves, and climate action.
Link to Data Set
Citation
Malpass, David. 2022. Remarks by World Bank Group President David Malpass at the 2022 Nordic Baltic Governors Meeting. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37767 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Report Series
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Publication
    Remarks by World Bank Group President David Malpass at Fragility Forum 2022
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-03-07) Malpass, David
    These remarks were delivered by World Bank Group President David Malpass at Fragility Forum 2022, Development and Peace in Uncertain Times on March 7, 2022. He said that there are no words to express the horror of the Ukrainian people, and the World Bank Group is doing everything it can to assist Ukraine and the region. He spoke about the largest refugee flow in Europe since WW2. He explained that they are assessing the consequences and how the WBG can respond, both in eastern Europe and in fragile countries around the world. He was hoping this fragility forum will confront challenges and provide new ideas on how the international community can more effectively help people facing conflict and fragility. He mentioned the following: (i) first, we are living in a world where protracted armed conflict keeps increasing, as we have seen in the Middle East and Africa, where immensely destructive impacts are reversing decades of progress in development; (ii) second, the pandemic has hit societies that are already in turmoil, food systems that are already impacted by climate change, and populations already displaced by conflict; (iii) third, climate change is a threat multiplier, placing major strain on economies and societies, particularly in fragile settings; and (iv) equally worrying are the new acute and destabilizing political crises, including coups d’états, as well as the unfreezing of old conflicts and the emergence of new inter-state wars. He highlighted that the World Bank Group has been active in fragile settings from our very inception and the support to countries affected by fragile, conflict, and violence (FCV) has deepened over the last decade. He spoke about their current FCV strategy provides a basis for differentiating their response at every stage of fragility and conflict as follows: helping prevent or mitigate risks in fragile environments; ensuring that they remain engaged in active crises and conflicts; and working to ensure sustainable recovery in post-crisis transitions. He hopes that the discussions during the Forum will help deepen our understanding of challenges related to fragility and set the concrete actions and priorities for the international community, for governments, and for people working to reverse the alarming trends we are seeing now.
  • Publication
    Remarks by World Bank Group President David Malpass to the Development Committee – 2022 Spring Meetings
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-04-22) Malpass, David
    These remarks were delivered by World Bank Group President David Malpass to the Development Committee at 2022 Spring Meetings on April 22, 2022. In the case of Ukraine, the World Bank Group is doing everything we can to assist during the crisis. We have already mobilized more than 3 billion dollars of support, enlarged by your grants, guarantees, and parallel financing. We are also exploring other innovative financing options to support countries hosting Ukrainian refugees. Together with the IMF and other IFIs we are sending a clear signal that we stand with the Ukrainian people during these difficult times. The World Bank Group has made significant progress over the past decade in our engagements with countries facing challenges across the full spectrum of fragility, conflict, and violence. The Bank expects to have committed 11 billion dollars to purchase and deploy vaccines by the end of our fiscal year, benefiting 81 countries. As the world faces crises of refugees and IDPs, digitalization is creating new jobs, expanding financial inclusion, and improving the delivery of health, education, and social protection programs. It is also increasing the quality of government services, enhancing accountability, and reducing opportunities for corruption. The World Bank Group can work with the public and private sectors, in collaboration with other development partners, to develop and expand access to solutions aimed at harnessing the full potential of digital transformation.
  • Publication
    Remarks by World Bank Group President David Malpass to G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors at the 2022 Spring Meetings
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-04-20) Malpass, David
    These remarks were delivered by World Bank Group President David Malpass to G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors at the 2022 Spring Meetings on April 20, 2022. He spoke about the following: (i) Global Economy and Risk; (ii) Global Health Issues; and (iii) International Financial Architecture.
  • Publication
    Remarks by World Bank Group President David Malpass at World Bank Group 2022 Spring Meetings Ministerial Roundtable for Support to Ukraine
    (World Bank, World Bank, 2022-04-21) Malpass, David
    These remarks were delivered by World Bank Group President David Malpass at World Bank Group 2022 Spring Meetings Ministerial Roundtable for Support to Ukraine on April 21, 2022. He said that he has been deeply horrified and shocked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the atrocities committed against the civilian population, and the loss of life and livelihoods for millions of Ukrainians. He mentioned that since the invasion, the World Bank Group has provided fast-disbursing financial support to help the government provide critical services, pay wages for hospital workers, public servants, and the elderly. He insisted that It will be important for all partners to continue coordinating their support for Ukraine’s budget needs. He described that the World Bank Group is working toward three phases of the recovery effort of relief, recovery, and resilience. He said that as the war continues, the World Bank Group will work to build confidence in Ukraine’s financial, monetary, and fiscal institutions, fostering currency stability as they go forward. He mentioned that rebuilding will take hard work, determination, and struggle, but he remains optimistic. He concluded by saying that with our collective support, Ukraine can achieve a brighter future.
  • Publication
    Remarks by World Bank Group President David Malpass to the G24 Meeting of Ministers and Governors
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-10-11) Malpass, David
    These remarks were delivered by World Bank Group President David Malpass to the G24 Meeting of Ministers and Governors on October 11, 2022. The developing world is facing an extremely challenging outlook shaped by sharply higher food, fertilizer, and energy prices, rising interest rates and credit spreads, currency depreciation, capital outflows, and higher level of debts that adds to higher inflation, impacting especially the poor. With the current trends, the risks of a global recession in 2023 are high. The World Bank Group, together with the IMF, stands ready to continue working with the G20 to make progress in the debt agenda and we look forward to working with India’s upcoming G20 Presidency on this.

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

  • Publication
    Remarks to the Annual Meetings 2020 Development Committee
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-10-16) Malpass, David
    David Malpass, President of the World Bank Group, announced that the Board approved a fast track approach to emergency health support programs that now covers 111 countries. Most projects are well advanced, with average disbursement upward of 40 percent. The goal is to take broad, fast action early. The operational framework presented back in June has positioned the Bank to help countries address immediate health threats and social and economic impacts and maintain our focus on long-term development. The Bank is making good progress toward the 15-month target of 160 billion dollars in surge financing. Much of it is for the poorest countries and will take the form of grants or low-rate, long-maturity loans. IFC, through the Global Health Platform, will be providing financing to vaccine manufacturers to foster expanded production of COVID-19 vaccines in both part 1 and 2 countries, providing production is reserved for emerging markets. The Development Committee holds a unique place in the international architecture. It is the only global forum in which the Governments of developed countries and the Governments of developing countries, creditor countries and borrower countries, come together to discuss development and the ‘net transfer of resources to developing countries.’ The current International Financial Architecture system is skewed in favor of the rich and creditor countries. It is important that all voices are heard, so Malpass urged the Ministers of developing countries to use their voice and speak their minds today. Malpass urged consideration of how we can build a new approach to debt restructuring that allows for a fair relationship and balance between creditors and debtors. This will be critical in restoring growth in developing countries; and helping reverse the inequality.
  • Publication
    Recipe for a Livable Planet
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-09-20) Sutton, William R.; Lotsch, Alexander; Prasann, Ashesh
    The global agrifood system has been largely overlooked in the fight against climate change. Yet, greenhouse gas emissions from the agrifood system are so big that they alone could cause the world to miss the goal of keeping global average temperatures from rising above 1.5 centigrade compared to preindustrial levels. Greenhouse gas emissions from agrifood must be cut to net zero by 2050 to achieve this goal. Recipe for a Livable Planet: Achieving Net Zero Emissions in the Agrifood System offers the first comprehensive global strategic framework to mitigate the agrifood system’s contributions to climate change, detailing affordable and readily available measures that can cut nearly a third of the world’s planet heating emissions while ensuring global food security. These actions, which are urgently needed, offer three additional benefits: improving food supply reliability, strengthening the global food system’s resilience to climate change, and safeguarding vulnerable populations. This practical guide outlines global actions and specific steps that countries at all income levels can take starting now, focusing on six key areas: investments, incentives, information, innovation, institutions, and inclusion. Calling for collaboration among governments, businesses, citizens, and international organizations, it maps a pathway to making agrifood a significant contributor to addressing climate change and healing the planet.
  • Publication
    Shrinking Economic Distance
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-09-19) Herrera Dappe, Matías; Lebrand, Mathilde; Stokenberga, Aiga
    Despite the reduction in transport costs over the past few decades, creating a single integrated economy remains elusive. Low- and middle-income countries face higher transport prices than high-income countries for both international and domestic shipments, and shipping times are longer and less reliable. Tackling the problem can increase income and general welfare in low- and middle-income countries, improving the lives of the people who live there. “Shrinking Economic Distance: Understanding How Markets and Places Can Lower Transport Costs in Developing Countries” makes a unique contribution by assessing the main determinants of shippers’ economic costs of freight transport—economic distance—and identifying the frictions that keep transport prices above an efficient level, shipping times high, and reliability low. Drawing on new analyses and compiling many others, the book provides important evidence to inform the design of policies to reduce the economic costs of transport and deepen the economic integration of developing countries. This book shows how understanding the frictions driving the economic costs of freight transport can help policy makers target reforms in the areas in which they can have the greatest impact and avoid unintended consequences. It lays out the building blocks for a reform agenda to reduce economic distance, which includes first making markets and then making places efficient. “Shrinking Economic Distance” will be of enormous value to policy makers, practitioners, and academics interested in freight transport and economic integration.
  • Publication
    Digital Africa
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13) Begazo, Tania; Dutz, Mark Andrew; Blimpo, Moussa
    All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.
  • Publication
    Services Unbound
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-12-09) World Bank
    Services are a new force for innovation, trade, and growth in East Asia and Pacific. The dramatic diffusion of digital technologies and partial policy reforms in services--from finance, communication, and transport to retail, health, and education--is transforming these economies. The result is higher productivity and changing jobs in the services sector, as well as in the manufacturing sectors that use these services. A region that has thrived through openness to trade and investment in manufacturing still maintains innovation-inhibiting barriers to entry and competition in key services sectors. 'Services Unbound: Digital Technologies and Policy Reform in East Asia and Pacific' makes the case for deeper domestic reforms and greater international cooperation to unleash a virtuous cycle of increased economic opportunity and enhanced human capacity that would power development in the region.