Spain and the UK on Thursday became the latest countries to promise increased sums to the International Development Association, the World Bank’s fund for 78 low income countries. Brazil also plans to return to the fold of donors.
The World Bank’s target for the resources available to IDA in its 21st replenishment, which will fund it for three years from July 2025, is $100bn. To reach that would require $28bn-$30bn of donor contributions, up from $24bn at the last fundraising, though only flat to 10% up in real terms. Other money comes from repaid loans and capital markets borrowing.
Carlos Cuerpo, Spain’s economy, trade and business minister, announced an early commitment of €400m, 37% more than in the last IDA replenishment cycle in 2020, when Spain was not among the top 20 donors.
On Thursday Ajay Banga, the Bank’s president, for the first time said the Bank now hoped to raise $105bn of total resources, which GlobalMarkets had reported that morning was now within range.
“This contribution is nothing else but our testament to our unwavering commitment to multilateralism and also global development, and our full trust in IDA as a tool for change,” Cuerpo said at an event at the World Bank’s Annual Meetings on Thursday.
“I would like to call on donor countries to come together and make sure that we accomplish a successful and ambitious IDA 21 replenishment for the global economy to remain resilient and guarantee long term peace, security and prosperity,” he said. “We cannot afford to leave anyone behind. We want to lead by example.”
$105bn target
At a separate event on Thursday, Anneliese Dodds, the UK’s minister for development and also for women and equalities, said a successful IDA 21 was going to be “critical” to hitting the World Bank’s development targets such as those on gender equality, announced on Thursday.
“So we’re really pleased to be stating that we will be increasing our support for IDA 21,” she said. The UK was the third largest donor to IDA 20 with a pledge of $1.97bn but Dodds declined to reveal the scale of the increase for IDA 21.
Banga praised Spain’s decision and also revealed Brazil had informed him at an earlier meeting of the G20 group at the Annual Meetings that it was planning to return as an IDA donor for the first time in three or four fundraising cycles.
Banga praised Spain for its leadership and setting an example for other donors. “Spain is very focused on four topics, all of which are right in the centre of IDA like a bullseye — debt, climate, food security and gender,” he said. “That’s your commitment to the power of multilateralism.”
Banga said IDA had been able to deploy $270bn over the past decade, contributing to 900m poor people gaining access to healthcare, 117m to electricity, and 94m to water. Eighteen million farmers had got “the chance to do better farming and better techniques and earn better money”.
On Thursday GlobalMarkets reported that $105bn was a “benchmark” for the Bank, as it would match the $93bn of resources in IDA 20 in real terms. Donor countries will hold a meeting next week ahead of the final pledging session in early December.