EVENTS
Abdulhamid Alkhalifa interviewed for Bloomberg Asharq (above); Antonella Bassani, World Bank, Vice President for Eastern Europe and Central Asia (top right); the OPEC Fund delegation (right); Martin Raiser, World Bank, Vice President for South Asia (below, left); and Makhtar Diop, International Finance Corporation, Managing Director (below, right)
MDB design “is insufficient to meet the moment”, Yellen argued. “The MDBs’ core model involves countries borrowing to make specific investments aimed at addressing development constraints in their own countries. Such a model will always underinvest in addressing global challenges – since the benefits of investments in global challenges stretch far beyond the borders of the country where a given project takes place.”
in low-income countries who have no access to energy or electricity.” Without energy there can be no development. The high demand for support was also reflected in the large number of countries the OPEC Fund delegation - which included Public Sector Assistant Director-General Fuad Albassam, General Counsel Violet Onyemenam, Senior Advisor Sami Ben Daamech, Head of Institutional and Administrative-Legal Hanno Scheuch, Public Sector Director, Asia & Pacific Jaafar Al-Mahdi, Private Sector Director for Business Development Khalid Khadduri and Private Sector Senior Investment Manager Richard Egobi - met for bilateral meetings. Talks with senior delegations from the Comoros, Philippines, Seychelles, Sri Lanka, Tanzania and Uzbekistan revolved around the intensification of cooperation through concrete public and private sector projects. In the same vein, a meeting with Makhtar Diop, Managing Director of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), provided the opportunity to discuss the role of the private sector. The two heads agreed that MDBs not only need to become considerably more successful in mobilizing private sector funding, but also must learn from the private sector in critical areas such as competitiveness, innovation and responsiveness.
One prime example is climate change, where today a broad consensus exists that only global action can achieve much-needed progress but joint action remains difficult to deliver. Climate action is also a key concern of the OPEC Fund and Director- General Alkhalifa told the Arab news portal and newspaper The National in Washington: “It’s a challenge, but we are a development institution that feels its responsibility and we are taking those responsibilities seriously. We are happy to adress that challenge.” He also gave an interview to Bloomberg Asharq. The OPEC Fund’s Climate Action Plan, adopted last September, sets the target to raise climate funding to 40 percent of all new financing by 2030, while at the same time continuing to tackle energy poverty. The OPEC Fund head added: “There are millions and millions of people
and-branch reform of the international system of development finance is becoming more and more overdue. The USA has taken a leading role in this process: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a keynote speech in February: “The world has changed, and we need these vital institutions to change along with it.” In doing so, the multilateral development banks (MDBs) are facing a dilemma: While on the one hand they are more and more called upon to address global challenges they are on the other hand not designed for such an approach and face a serious shortfall of resources. For development organizations to play an enhanced and larger role, the current
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