The FINANCIAL — The World Bank Group committed $52.6 billion in loans, grants, equity investments, and guarantees to help promote economic growth, increase shared prosperity, and fight extreme poverty in developing countries during fiscal year 2013, which ended on June 30, according to The World Bank Group.
The Bank recently raised its growth forecast for 2013 to 5.1 percent for developing countries, up from 5.0 percent in 2012, and noted that developing-country GDP is forecast to strengthen in coming years. Risks from advanced economies have declined and growth prospects are increasing, despite ongoing contraction in the Euro Area. Growth in some countries has been held back and is unlikely to reach pre-crisis growth rates unless supply-side reforms are completed, according to The World Bank Group.
Despite the slowly recovering global economy, the World Bank Group supported an estimated 1,956 operations to promote opportunity and get needed services to the poor – for example, by investing in nutrition, promoting the private sector, building infrastructure, and strengthening governance and institutions.
“The Bank’s performance has been strong during my first year as President, and we are well positioned to address the economic challenges developing countries face during these still uncertain times,” said Jim Yong Kim, World Bank Group President. “At the Spring Meetings, our shareholders endorsed two new goals: ending extreme poverty by 2030 and boosting shared prosperity by fostering income growth for the bottom 40 percent of the population in every developing country. We are realigning all of the Bank’s efforts to achieve these goals," he added.
"We are also modernizing the Bank and developing a new strategy which will use these new goals to galvanize development efforts and deliver transformational development solutions to countries. I commend the Bank Group’s staff for their dedication to this task and look forward to even greater progress in the year to come,” he added.
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