EVENTS
EVENT: World Bank/ IMF Annual Meetings
Director-General Dr. Alkhalifa leads a delegation to the first in-person World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings since 2019 By Axel Reiserer, OPEC Fund
OPEC FUND IN WASHINGTON “IT’S GOOD TO RECONNECT”
F or OPEC Fund Director-General Dr. Abdulhamid Alkhalifa it clearly was a homecoming: For the first time in three years, the 2022 World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings in Washington, DC took place in person: “It is good to reconnect,” the Director-General said when he opened a meeting with the World Bank’s Vice President for Latin America and the Caribbean Carlos Felipe Jaramillo. The feeling was mutual: “Seeing each other in person makes all the difference,” Vice President Jaramillo responded. It was here in Washington that Dr. Alkhalifa at an earlier stage of his career had served in various leadership positions at the World Bank. He left a lasting impression. Rushing along the endless corridors of the so-called Main Complex and directing his delegation adroitly through the maze of offices, meeting rooms and service areas, he was constantly stopped by fellow heads of institutions and former colleagues for a quick hello, a cordial word or a warm handshake. This did not distract the OPEC Fund head from his mission to strengthen the cooperation between development institutions, partner countries and private sector investors and lift joint efforts to a new level: “As we are confronted with global challenges, we must find global responses. We must join
forces to overcome the multiple crises the world is facing and at the same time not lose sight of the indispensable goal of sustainable development,” he said. Pursuing this goal the OPEC Fund delegation had numerous meetings with governments as well as with the leadership of the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the Black Sea Trade and Development Bank, the Dutch development bank FMO, the German development bank DEG and Afreximbank. Bilateral meetings included the governments of Bahrain, Georgia, Guatemala, Kazakhstan and Libya. The OPEC Fund Director-General was also invited to speak at a round table on
developments and challenges facing the Middle East and North Africa region. In his intervention he focused on how to bridge the gap between energy poverty and climate action: “We can take a major step forward with improvements of energy efficiency. But to reach the climate goals we need to drastically increase the output from renewable sources of energy,” he said. While climate action was a major topic in many discussions the OPEC Fund delegation held in Washington, many other pertinent issues were discussed too. Food security and public health were the key issues in a conversation with World Bank Vice President Eastern & Southern Africa Victoria Kwakwa, while the meeting with Vice President Jaramillo focused on ways to overcome the infrastructure gap. Despite repeated warnings – most recently by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) – that the deficit in the sector is increasing rapidly, action is difficult to mobilize. The global economic downturn, soaring inflation and strained public finances are causing additional obstacles for the delivery of urgently needed investments.
Carlos Felipe Jaramillo, World Bank Vice President for Latin America and the Caribbean
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PHOTO: OPEC Fund/Axel Reiserer
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