'World Bank widening vision to work for a liveable planet'

Reform will focus beyond poverty eradication, to include work on climate, disease, fragility

- Gulveen Aulakh & Puja Das NEW DELHI

• $200 bn lending headroom over next decade for SDGs
• 50% plus women comprise labour, total workforce

The World Bank’s vision is being redefined to eradicate poverty on a "liveable planet" as part of ongoing reforms, its president Ajay Banga said on the sidelines of the New Delhi G20 summit, which has pledged to make multilateral lending work for poverty.

"There’s a lot of work going on with the World Bank on the reform agenda. It starts from redefining the vision of the bank, to not just be focused on poverty, although it’s important, but to also include a liveable planet," Banga said.

"The idea is to eradicate poverty on a liveable planet and by doing that, we expand the aperture of our view to include climate, pandemics, fragility, things that we are living through, and these are intertwined with poverty alleviation—very difficult to segregate them," he said.