World Bank: Developing countries need $2.4 tn each year between now and 2030 to address global challenges

The World Bank revealed in its latest report that Developing countries will need an average of $2.4 trillion each year between now and 2030 to address the global challenges of climate change, conflict, and pandemics. Without it, children will attend substandard schools, families will go without quality health care, and communities will struggle to cope with the effects of climate change.

The Bank referred in the report that the private sector can’t step up without improved funding structures, new ways to balance and allocate risks, and reimagined partnerships.

The World Bank Group’s Private Sector Investment Lab, instituted by President Ajay Banga, recognized this challenge. One of the solutions it proposed was to ramp up our organization’s guarantees work. That’s why we’ve launched a groundbreaking new platform to catalyze private sector capital and accelerate sustainable development on a livable planet. The new World Bank Group Guarantees platform is designed to boost our guarantee volume to $20 billion by 2030.

The guarantee platform, housed at the World Bank Group’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), will be a one-stop shop for all the institution’s guarantee business. The platform has three product families: credit guarantees (for loans to the public or private sector); political risk insurance (for private sector projects or public-private partnerships); and trade finance guarantees for public sector risk.

With the World Bank’s lead on country and sector dialogue and the International Finance Corporation’s (IFC) financing and technical assistance, guarantees can be the final missing piece to unlock private capital in many lower-income countries in dire need of sustainable infrastructure.