This year\u2019s International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Group Spring Meetings opened amidst news of two startling findings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First, one in three economically vulnerable countries are now poorer than before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the World Bank reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Second, in 2023, developing countries received USD 200 billion less from international financial institutions than what they paid<\/a> in bond and loan repayments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These hard realities are shaping the context of this year\u2019s UN climate negotiations (COP29) taking place in Baku, Azerbaijan, in November, where governments are expected<\/a> to agree on a new climate finance goal. For this goal to be effective, it must be supported by reforms to the international financial architecture, including revamping of the World Bank and IMF.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the 2015 UN climate negotiations in Paris, governments agreed<\/a> to formulate a new climate finance goal by 2025 to succeed the existing target of USD 100 billion a year by 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2021, the governments of developed countries had only mobilised USD 89.6 billion in climate finance, and are likely to have met the USD 100 billion goal in 2022, according<\/a> to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).<\/p>\n\n\n\n This public finance was also expected to help mobilise vast sums of private finance through deepening local financial markets and creating a conducive climate for private investment, as captured in the World Bank\u2019s \u201cfrom billions to trillions<\/a>\u201d agenda. However, in 2022, the IMF estimated that multilateral development banks (MDBs) were only able to mobilise<\/a> 1.2 times the private resources they had themselves committed.<\/p>\n\n\n\nNo more \u2018billions to trillions\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n