News Story

Financial Sector Agenda Gains Momentum During the 2024 Annual Meetings

From launching ambitious gender goals to a heightened ambition for jobs and unveiling a new approach to agrifinance, the 2024 World Bank Group – IMF Annual Meetings showcased a critical momentum for the financial sector policy reforms.

F4D Umbrella Program hosted a roundtable with development partners on the sidelines of the Annual Meetings to discuss key outcomes of the meetings and outline strategic priorities for the financial sector work at the World Bank. The roundtable also served as a follow-up to the Global Finance Partner Forum held earlier this year in Vienna, and the team shared an update on the progress achieved since then.

A quick recap of key Annual Meetings announcements:

GENDER

The World Bank Group took the first steps toward implementing the Gender Strategy 2030, announcing a set of actions and concrete goals that aim to boost economic opportunities for more women. These include a target for expanding access to capital for women:  By 2030, WBG commits to provide 80 million more women and women-led businesses with capital.

JOBS

In his plenary address, Ajay Banga outlined how the World Bank is poised to embark on the next phase of its mission—ensuring that job creation is an explicit aim—not just a byproduct—of projects.  Our MSME finance and private capital mobilization work will be critical for achieving this ambition.

Agrifinance

The World Bank Group is making a strategic pivot to create a comprehensive ecosystem for the agriculture sector. This new integrated approach will bring together all the institution’s resources to offer comprehensive support to an area that is being fundamentally reshaped by climate change, innovations in finance, digitalization, and solutions to fragmentation. The World Bank announced a new level of investment—aiming to double its agrifinance and agribusiness commitments to $9 billion annually by 2030.

Achieving this ambitious agenda will require stronger partnerships, more strategic coordination of efforts and enhanced support for the World Bank technical assistance to leverage Bank’s lending.

F4D Umbrella Program, through its direct support for country-level financial sector policy reforms, capacity building and knowledge work, will continue to champion the corporate agenda, ensuring full alignment with its grant portfolio. Click here to learn how F4D’s results architecture contributes to the World Bank Group priorities, including a corporate Scorecard, and view a presentation from the roundtable, outlining key World Bank priorities for the financial sector.