The World Bank’s Big Week

This week, observers are paying close attention to the World Bank as it holds its annual autumn meetings with the International Monetary Fund in Marrakech. The nearly 80-year-old institution hopes to reach an agreement on a major plan for reform—which would include scaling up its operations and prioritizing climate change goals.

For critics, reform is long overdue. This edition of Flash Points considers, among other things, the bank’s funding model, governance culture, and track record on poverty alleviation, to examine the challenges that the institution is facing and how to fix it.

Then-World Bank Group President David Malpass speaks at a briefing during the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund Spring Meetings in Washington on April 13. MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images

The World Bank Is Still Failing the Poor

Poverty alleviation in the economically weakest parts of the world will require giving the poor a real seat at the table—which the World Bank has never done, FP’s Howard W. French writes.

A farmer operates a rice paddy transplantation machine near Niamey, Niger, on Aug. 16.AFP via Getty Images

Niger Is a Warning for the World Bank

International finance needs a new playbook for crisis as the bank convenes for its annual meetings, Anastasia Moran writes.

Ajay Banga, then the United States’ candidate to head the World Bank, speaks during an interview in Nairobi on March 8. TONY KARUMBA/AFP via Getty Images

The World Bank Must Do More With Less

The organization will have to tackle a growing range of issues with a shrinking capital base, Zainab Usman writes.

Then the United States’ candidate to head the World Bank, Ajay Banga, visits an electricity plant financed by the World Bank in Yopougon, Ivory Coast, on March 7.ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP via Getty Images

The World Bank Won’t Succeed Until the West Pulls Its Weight

The development bank doesn’t have enough money to achieve its goals—unless it gets more creative with its balance sheet, Devesh Kapur writes.

Alex Nabaum illustration for Foreign Policy

A New Multilateralism

Gordon Brown considers how the United States can rejuvenate the global institutions it created.