Foundations and businesses come together with the World Bank in a variety of ways, from exchanging insights and ideas to working together on joint initiatives. Some of the key ways to partner are outlined below, and offer opportunities for both strategic financing and sharing expertise.
World Bank trust funds channel financial resources from donors to support a range of development assistance, including funding expert teams to provide pivotal support on the ground in client countries and creating global knowledge products that aid with economic transition around the world. Partners help drive innovation by bringing their expertise, as well as their funding, to administration of the trust funds.
We have a wide range of trust funds, covering topics from climate and gender to public financial management and tax. Partners have opportunities to choose topical and geographic focus. And through trust funds, partners connect with Bank management to provide input, share knowledge, and keep up to date with impact and results.
Newly created, the Global Challenge Programs (GCPs) use replicable and scalable approaches to support countries to achieve development results with greater speed and impact, while helping to ramp up response to global challenges. Each GCP comprises a series of country-level operations that are part of a broader, globally coordinated platform. GCPs relate to defined global outcomes aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals.
The GCPs offer opportunities for collaboration with the private sector and the philanthropic community, needed for both their funding potential and the added expertise they can bring to the projects.
GCPs will combine public and private capital and solutions, as well as co-financing from other multilateral development banks to address targeted global challenges.
There are currently six global challenge programs in development:
Across the programs, particular emphasis is being placed on fragility, conflict, and violence.
Outcome bonds allow investors to support individual development projects and fund specific project outcomes aligned with their priorities.
Through outcome bonds, investors take on the risk of a project’s performance and get rewarded if it is successful. That means investors get a direct link to a positive development outcome—but in a relatively safe structure supported in part by the triple-A credit strength of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the lending arm of the World Bank Group.
Support can be provided to a project without taking on implementation risk, which is covered by investors. "Outcome donors" only pay when a project achieves specific successful results, such as the generation of carbon credits. Donors can also support outcome bonds by providing grants to cover transaction costs, which are typically higher than for plain vanilla bonds.
The International Development Association (IDA) is the global solidarity fund for the poor. It is the part of the World Bank that helps the world’s poorest countries. Since 1960, IDA has provided $533 billion in funding to 115 countries, transforming the lives of hundreds of millions of people. But there’s far more need.
IDA provides zero- to low-interest loans (called “credits”) and grants for programs that boost economic growth, reduce inequalities, and improve people’s living conditions. IDA is one of the largest sources of assistance for the world’s 75 poorest countries and is the single largest source of donor funds for basic social services in these countries.
The current round of IDA replenishment—called IDA 21—is focusing on the major challenges of our time: helping poor countries to lift people out of poverty; protect them from climate change, pandemics, and fragility; and boost economic growth to create jobs and prosperity.
The Livable Planet Fund (LPF) is a new vehicle, which responds to calls for greater support for middle income countries seeking to tackle global challenges, recognizing that concessional funding has been limited so far for projects with cross-border benefits.
The LPF is a World Bank trust fund that mobilizes grant financing. Its objective is to provide price incentives to middle income countries to encourage them to focus on projects that address key global challenges.
The LPF will incentivize projects which deliver cross-border or global benefits by addressing issues such as climate change mitigation and adaptation, biodiversity, food and nutrition security, water security and access, energy access, fragility and conflict, pandemic prevention and preparedness and enabling digitalization. For example, a project that protects natural mangroves that provide flood protection along the border of two countries, and at the same time reduces GHG emissions owing to mangroves’ effectiveness as carbon sinks, would be in the scope of the LPF.
The World Bank Group Partnership Fund for the Sustainable Development Goals finances innovative, high-impact initiatives with tangible impact that advance the SDGs at the local and global levels. The Fund makes it possible for countries to access tailored World Bank knowledge and expertise, and to participate in capacity-building and professional development in strategically targeted areas, enabling local authorities to be more effective in achieving the SDGs and improving the lives of citizens. (Please note that the SDG Partnership Fund is a World Bank-executed trust fund and does not accept external proposals.)
For a look at projects we fund, please download our annual report.
For more information, please contact the Partnership Fund for SDGs Secretariat.
Learn More About Working with the World Bank:
Insights & Opportunities Briefings
Insights & Opportunities Briefings are a good way for foundations and businesses to learn of entry points for partnering with the World Bank and to gain insights and ideas for advancing development goals. Participants include senior World Bank staff, sustainability executives from the private sector, and representatives of philanthropies. Each Briefing focuses on a key development topic—such as climate change, food security, forcibly displaced persons, and human capital—and includes brief presentations and time for questions and answers. The Briefings, which are virtual, are offered three to four times per year.
To learn more about Insights & Opportunities Briefings, contact the World Bank Group Partnerships Team.
Participate in Global Conversation, Advocacy, and Action Planning:
Annual and Spring Meetings
The World Bank Group holds high-level meetings twice a year—the Annual Meetings, which take place in the autumn, and the Spring Meetings. These events are attended by heads of state and parliamentarians, along with leaders from civil society, the broader development community, businesses, and foundations Partners participate in regional briefings, press conferences, and fora focused on international development, the global economy, and financial markets. Heads of companies and foundations attend to share insights and to help raise visibility and advocate for shared goals, priorities, and strategies.
