The World Bank's Growing Agenda by Caleb F

 According to the United Nations Development Programme, “Today over 2 billion people - one third of the global population - are poor or near-poor and face persistent threats to their livelihoods, including from climate change. Estimates indicate that by 2030 more than 100 million people could fall back into extreme poverty.” We can see that both climate change and poverty are problems, but today I will be answering the question should the World Bank focus more on climate change or poverty eradication. The answer to this is that they should focus more on poverty eradication. We will be exploring this through the background, why they should focus more on poverty eradication, and finally the impact that this will bring.

Before we get into a common debate within the World Bank, let's explore some background so we can understand the topic. First, what is the World Bank? Investopedia defines it as, “An international organization dedicated to providing financing, advice, and research to developing nations to aid their economic advancement. The bank predominantly acts as an organization that attempts to fight poverty by offering developmental assistance to middle- and low-income countries.”  Now that we have defined the World Bank, I’ll define something that when I started researching this topic, I was quite perplexed by. What does the World Bank have to do with climate change?  According to the World Bank, “The World Bank Group is the biggest multilateral funder of climate investments in developing countries. And we intend to go further in helping countries reduce poverty and rise to the challenges of climate change. Between 2016 and 2021, the World Bank Group delivered over $109 billion in climate finance, including a record $26 billion in FY21.” FY21 just means fiscal year 2021.So over the past 5 years, the World Bank has spent $109 billion to help climate change. So hopefully now I have answered your question, as well as mine, on what they have to do with climate change. But how does a bank help poverty? How it works is really similar to climate change. Referring back to my World Bank definition, they donate money to middle and low income countries, the ones with the most poverty. 

Now that we know what the World Bank is and what they do, why should they focus more on poverty eradication? According to Forbes, “A basic problem inherent in any bureaucracy is that its ostensible agenda, the one that motivated its creation, can easily be set aside as its managers pursue a narrower objective irrelevant to its original motivation but that benefits them professionally or personally in some way. Unfortunately, it appears that the World Bank may soon suffer this fate.” Later in that article it states how the World Bank should focus more on poverty. It even states in its definition, “the bank predominantly acts as an organization that attempts to fight poverty.” So we can see that the World Bank's initial purpose was to fight poverty but now they are straying into fighting climate change and this is a major problem. Poverty is the bank's purpose. No where in the definition does it mention climate change. Again according to Forbes, “David Malpass, in charge of the World Bank, has resisted sacrificing the World Bank's mission of alleviating poverty to implement a revised agenda focused on climate change for the simple reason that it's impossible to do so without impacting the bank's ability to improve the lot of people in developing countries.” We can see that even the people running the operation acknowledge that it’s 1; impossible, and 2; not within the bank's purpose. We have to keep the bank within its most important, and primary objective, poverty eradication. 

Finally, we should consider the impact of choosing poverty eradication over climate change. As America is classified as an upper middle-upper class income nation, it does not directly impact us, however, poverty is at an all time high and not many people can help it. The World Bank is one of the few, large, impactful organizations that can help with this. I am not saying that climate change isn’t a problem. However, it is not the bank’s purpose and not their focus. There are lots of organizations working on climate change currently. But the World Bank should not be one of them.

Today I have answered the question whether the World Bank should focus more on climate change, or poverty eradication. I believe that they should focus more on poverty and we have explored the background, why they should focus more on poverty, on the impact brought forth by this. The World Bank’s purpose is poverty eradication. So we should be concerned if they stray away from their objective. I will leave you with the words of Nelson Mandela, “Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life.”