The World Bank's Bold New Vision

“To create a world free of poverty – on a livable planet.”

This vision and mission will test the sincerity of our ambition – it sets us on a journey that will require reimagined partnerships, a new way of working and thinking, an innovative plan to scale and replicate, additional resources, and optimism for what could be possible.

In all corners of the globe, people are eager to go to work, and to create with their own hands. They want a better life for their children and grandchildren.

We must be the hand on the back – moving people forward. We must be an institution that exports optimism and impact.

“Knowing that when development is delayed – development is denied.”

The World Bank has launched an ambitious program to quicken our pace, increase our efficiency, and simplify our processes.

Our devotion is not just reflected in our words, it should be measured in action.

We are becoming more efficient – incentivizing output, not input, and ensuring we focus less on money out the door and more on how many girls are in school, how many jobs are created, how many tons of carbon dioxide emissions are avoided, and how many private sector dollars are mobilized.

Our hope is to refocus the World Bank to confront challenges not just as a bank, as a funding mechanism, but as a knowledge mechanism. That’s what governments are calling for – our knowledge. 

“There is nothing that gives me more hope than our capacity to work together in common purpose.”

We are recruiting new partners and reimagining partnerships.

We are joining with others, working alongside multilateral development banks to coordinate global action, catalyze change, and multiply impact.

Our hope is to refocus the World Bank to confront challenges not just as a funding mechanism, but as a knowledge mechanism.

That’s what governments are calling for – our knowledge.

"Finance a different world."

We must find a way to finance a different world where our climate is protected, pandemics are manageable – if not preventable – food is abundant, and fragility and poverty are defeated.

This journey began in April, when the World Bank and its team found a way to squeeze $40 billion over 10 years from our balance sheet by adjusting our loan to equity ratio. We’ve created a portfolio guarantee mechanism. We’ve launched a hybrid capital instrument. These new tools enable us to take more risks and could help us provide $157 billion plus in lending capacity over a decade.

We need donors, shareholders, and philanthropies to join us and bring their ambition to this fight, otherwise these instruments are just theoretical.

"We need the scale, resources, and ingenuity of the private sector."

Even with a better Bank, even with governments, multilateral institutions, and philanthropies all working together we will still fall short. We need the scale, resources, and ingenuity of the private sector.

We are asking a lot of the private sector.

We are asking them to operate in places and in situations that their algorithms and expertise may not extend, on roads the World Bank has traveled for years. And if we are asking others to follow – we should be willing to share our map.