This Week @ The World Bank Board

Apologies it's been a while since my last update!

This week we celebrated Africa Day, which officially takes place on 25 May every year to commemorate the founding of the Organisation of African Unity in 1963. This year also marked 80 years of partnership between the World Bank and Africa. Vikram R. gave us a brief history of that partnership. Four African countries were at Bretton Woods itself: Egypt, Ethiopia, Liberia and South Africa. And the first World Bank loan to Africa was to Ethiopia in 1950. It was prepared in just 4 months! I'm grateful to our three African chairs, Harold Tavares Zarau Wendeline Kibwe and Zainab Ahmed for hosting us. A phrase that stuck with me from the day was "from partnership to shared power".

That's very relevant this year because, as regular readers will know, the Board is currently conducting a Shareholding Review. As part of this we are also looking at wider options to strengthen voice. And with my usual thanks to my wonderful Brazilian co-Chair Marcos Vinicius Chiliatto as well as the whole Board, we had a good initial discussion on some of these options. Still a long way to go of course!

Personally, I strongly believe that a diversity of voices helps us make better decisions. So let me quote Nelson Mandela as a segue to my next topic. Mandela remains an inspiration to so many. He once said that "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world". I agree. It is what changed my life. And I strongly believe in its power. But 70% of children in the world are in learning poverty. That means by the age of 10 they cannot read and understand a simple text. A situation that was compounded by Covid-19. At the same time, the youth population, especially in Africa, is growing fast. So I was pleased that we were able to take a step back and think about how the Bank approaches its support to education. The discussion built on the recent Independent Evaluation Group study on this. A stronger focus on learning outcomes and education financing will be critical. We also discussed how the Bank can go further by investing in skills development for young people, including through IFC - International Finance Corporation. Historically, such efforts have had mixed results, but it's undoubtedly a critical gap, especially as the jobs market evolves so rapidly.

How we support education in fragile and conflict affected countries is a critical part of this. 473m children are affected by conflict. We see that every day in the news. One bit of good news was the clearance of arrears for Syria which potentially unlocks new World Bank support (and huge credit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Qatar for doing this). I was extremely impressed with the Syrian technocrats when I met them at the Spring Meetings. So I'm looking forward the Bank stepping in. More widely, this year the Bank is updating its Fragility, Conflict and Violence strategy. This is one of the UK's top priorities. So it was great to have both the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office Director Humanitarian, Matthew Wyatt and Director Migration and Conflict, Matt Baugh here together to discuss the new Strategy with Bank colleagues.

Of course the regular Board discussions continued with discussions on several country strategies, including Croatia, the Philippines, Nepal and Liberia! But I'll save discussion on country strategies for another time.