Biden to focus on World Bank reform, new funding at G-20 summit in New Delhi
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The Biden administration is pushing the World Bank as a counterpart to China's overseas lending.
PHOTO: REUTERS
WASHINGTON - US President Joe Biden will focus on reforming the World Bank and urging other multilateral development banks to boost lending for climate change and infrastructure projects during the Group of 20 (G-20) leaders’ summit in India, the White House said on Tuesday.
“That’s one of our main focuses heading into the G-20: delivering on an agenda fundamentally reshaping and scaling up the multilateral development banks, especially the World Bank,” US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters.
The Biden administration is pushing the World Bank, founded to alleviate poverty as World War II drew to a close, as a counterpart to China’s overseas lending.
New chief executive Ajay Banga has pushed to expand climate change and hunger programmes, and boost the bank’s lending power with new funding and balance sheet rules.
The White House in late August asked Congress for US$3.3 billion (S$4.5 billion) in additional funding as part of a supplemental budget request to “materially expand development and infrastructure financing” through the World Bank to offer countries a “credible alternative to the People’s Republic of China’s coercive and unsustainable lending and infrastructure projects”.
“We know that these institutions are some of the most effective tools that we have for mobilising transparent, high-quality investment into developing countries,” Mr Sullivan said on Tuesday. “And that’s why the United States is championing a major effort that is currently under way to involve these institutions so that they are up to the challenges of today and tomorrow.”
Mr Biden will also call on the G-20 to provide meaningful debt relief for low- and middle-income countries, Mr Sullivan said. REUTERS
