Global Economy: Nigeria, Others Face Challenge Of Sustainable Growth- World Bank

Photo Caption: Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun (left); the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rt. Hon. Philip Hammond and Minister of Finance, Malta, Edward Scicluna, during the 2018 IMF-World Bank Spring Meeting in Washington DC which focused on sustainable growth, on Saturday, 21st April, 2018.

Given the structural changes to the global economy, the World Bank Group, on Saturday warned that developing economies, including Nigeria may be challenged with keeping pace with robust and sustainable growth and global development trajectory in the near term.

In a communiqué issued at the close of the institutions’ Spring Meetings in Washington D.C., by its Development Committee, a ministerial-level forum, of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund, nonetheless assured that it “is uniquely placed to address global challenges and help countries achieve their goals in today’s increasingly complex development landscape.”

The communiqué, while stressing support for the group’s twin goals of eliminating extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity, urged the group to strengthen its financial capacity and meet the aspirations of its shareholders.
World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim, in his remarks at the press conference that opened the Spring Meetings, also highlighted the financial strengthening of IDA, the World Bank’s fund for the poorest countries, through an inaugural bond issue that raised $1.5 billion from investors around the world this week.
According to him, “IDA’s entry to the global capital markets is historic – the latest transformational shift in how we approach development finance. IDA will be able to dramatically scale up financing to help countries meet the 2030 development goals, and deliver greater value to shareholders.”

Both the committee’s communiqué and Kim’s speech at American University prior to the meetings emphasized that the group must continue to crowd in private sector resources for development, as the main driver of investment, innovation, and jobs.
The committee called on the World Bank, IFC, and MIGA to collaborate for mobilization of private investment as part of maximizing finance for inclusive growth and poverty reduction.

Kim also underscored the importance of building human capital as the foundation for long-term development progress in the Bank Group’s client countries. At the upcoming Annual Meetings, scheduled for October in Indonesia, the Bank Group will release an index measuring countries’ human capital to help inform government leaders’ decisions on investments in health and education.
While acknowledging a range of pressing challenges to sustainable growth for developing countries – a rise in public debt levels for low-income countries, climate and disaster risks, and major gaps in gender equality, among others – the committee reiterated its support for the group’s role in building global solutions.

In his speech, Kim noted that optimism has defined the vision of the World Bank Group from the outset. He quoted U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, who stated the new organization’s objective at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944: “A dynamic world economy in which the people of every nation will be able to realize their potentialities in peace, to raise their own standards of living and enjoy increasingly the fruits of material progress. For freedom of opportunity is the foundation for all other freedoms.”

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