Devex @ World Bank-IMF: The Skinny On World Bank Plans To Harness Private Capital

Devex Podcasts

How can the World Bank play a role in attracting more private capital to address development and climate needs? That is a challenge that World Bank President Ajay Banga has prioritized and was a key discussion in Washington, D.C., last week at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund Spring Meetings. From a Private Sector Investment Lab charged with helping the bank identify and scale what already works to a new loan guarantee platform and plans to bundle and sell some International Finance Corporation investments to private investors, changes are afoot. But there are questions about how far existing proposals go, if they will succeed, and how exactly private sector mobilization will be measured. In this podcast episode we hear from experts about how those efforts stack up and what more can be done to attract private money to these markets. We dive into what the Private Sector Investment Lab has prioritized, why mobilization efforts have been stymied, and the importance of data transparency in these discussions. Gavin Wilson, who leads DAI Capital; Nancy Lee, director for Sustainable Development Finance at the Center for Global Development; Ben Weisman, executive director of capital mobilization and public policy at the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero; and Gary Forster, CEO of Publish What You Fund share their insights.