Jaitley pitches for reforms in World Bank at global meet

Lima (Peru) :India has made a strong case for shareholding of the World Bank Group to reflect the share of developing countries in the global economy and demanded a significant increase in capital of the multilateral lending agency to meet financing needs.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley speaking in the Plenary Meeting of the Development Committee here emphasised the need for bigger financing and implementation plans by the World Bank Group to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Development Committee is the ministerial-level forum of the World Bank Group and the IMF for intergovernmental consensus-building on development issues. Jaitley represented the constituency consisting of the countries—Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan and India in this ministerial-level forum.

Jaitley further emphasised on the responsibility of the developed countries to fulfil their commitment of mobilising USD 100 billion per annum for climate finance, which should be from new and additional sources.

He said that the consultations on the World Bank’s proposed “Environment and Social Framework” must ensure that the new framework is realistic, simple to implement and affordable in terms of cost and time.

PTI