Against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic, World Bank President David Malpass has been a surprisingly outspoken advocate of policies to reduce global warming, curb economic inequality and use multilateral institutions to combat the worst effects of the pandemic. .
Why it matters: As a nominee of former President Donald Trump and longtime skeptic about multilateral institutions, many feared that Malpass would weaken the World Bank’s work on climate change or make it more ‘America First’ in its orientation. But that was not the case, as he explained in ‘Axios on HBO’.
The whole picture: Malpass is the leader of one of the most powerful financial institutions in the world, whose mission is to reduce global poverty and is the last resort for countries struggling to stay afloat.
- “We’ve seen this growing, growing inequality … it seems like the system we currently have is not working.”
- “There is less and less capital available for small businesses. And there is a centralization of prosperity in the different economies.”
Where it says: In December, the World Bank increased its target and now expects 35% of its funding to have “average fringe benefits for the next five years”. That is higher than 28% in 2019 and an 18% target under Malpass’ predecessor, Jim Yong Kim.
- The Bank was also a strong supporter of the implementation and support of the Paris climate agreement, while Malpass told Axios on HBO that the Bank was ‘strongly involved in this effort’.
On inequality, Malpass was one of the most outspoken critics of the current state of affairs and the way central banks have addressed the issue.
- “Inequality is a major challenge for political systems and also for people’s health, for their livelihoods,” Malpass said.
- “There’s not much going on for people at the bottom of the scale. The biggest thing that helps them is education and work. And both were disadvantaged during the COVID crisis.”
Flash back: When Malpass was nominated in 2019, Stewart Patrick, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote that Malpass had an antithetical opinion with the Bank’s mission.
- Patrick also said that Malpass’s Trump’s misleading view that multilateral institutions are inherently working against US sovereignty and national interests, and that he can be counted on to undermine the Bank’s invaluable work around the world. ‘
- “He’s exactly the wrong person at the wrong time to run the Bank,” Patrick concluded.
Kim apparently left his post three years early due to disagreements over the Trump administration’s position on climate change, including Trump’s claims that climate change was a ‘joke’ and his plans to withdraw from the Paris Agreement.
The last word: “Climate change, poverty and inequality are the determinants of issues of our time,” Malpass said in a recent speech.