The newly appointed President of the World Bank Ajay Banga has called for a change in the vision on poverty. He also called for more concrete steps for raising finance for infrastructure.
“The World Bank should amend its vision to go from just being poverty-focused to saying ‘yes, we want to create a world that is free of poverty but we have to be on a liveable planet’ …that’s kind of critical. Building resilient and inclusive cities is completely core to that vision,” he said while addressing an investor dialogue on the sideline of the G20 Finance Minister Central Bank Governor meeting here on Sunday.
“Cities that are inclusive but cities that are safe for women and girls, where young people can have jobs so that they can have the dignity of a future, cities that are resilient to climate change,” he said.
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Talking about the resource needs for infrastructure – both for new and also upgrading ageing ones, he said these needs are considered efforts by governments and international financial institutions. “We need to bolster these lagging private sector flows. We have all been talking about private capital flows that should somehow flow miraculously into all these places. We haven’t done a very good job. So, we have to get past that conversation to get to understand what holds back, what are the barriers holding back private investment in sustainable, quality infrastructure,” he said.
He informed the gathering that last week, the World Bank announced the 15 Chief Executive Officers and Chairs who will make up the Private Sector Investment Lab. The founding members comprise a core group charged with developing solutions to address the barriers to private sector investment in emerging markets. The quality of their individual – and combined – expertise, leadership, and success in business and finance underscore the growing momentum, and level of commitment, for public and private collaboration to address global challenges and urgently scale development solutions.
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