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Thursday 28 March 2024
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The US proposes Ajay Banga as head of the World Bank

The US proposes Ajay Banga as head of the World Bank

Ajay Banga, a former CEO of Mastercard, has been proposed by the US to lead the World Bank. Some of the best news websites have this headline, which grabbed many readers’ attention. President Joe Biden announced the same on Thursday while praising him for his experience in the global challenges that even includes the climatic changes. This news has come up after Trump appointee David Malpass announced he was stepping down from his role leading the 189-nation effort to reduce poverty. His term of five years was about to expire in April 2024.

The Biden administration addressed many climatic changes’ impacts at the multilateral bank, which is now the US priority. Considering the rise in the climate figures, the Biden administration is now using malpass early resignation as a new scope to overhaul the powerful financial institution. While efforts are made to address climate change, it was criticized as being hostile to less wealthy nations.

Malpass was under criticism earlier for the comments he made on raising doubt about the science. He stated that burning fossil fuels may cause global warming. Even though he later apologized and admitted that he misspoke while noting that banks frequently rely on climate science,

So who is Ajay Banga Banga?

At the moment, Banga serves as Vice Chairman of General Atlantic Private Equity. He holds more than 30 years of experience in business and has even served many roles at Mastercard before. In addition, he served on the boards of the American Red Cross, Dow Inc., and Kraft Foods. Presently he has become the first Indian-born nominee for World Bank president.

What the experts have to say

Ajay is utterly dedicated to heading the World Bank due to his overall experience. In the statement, Biden also stated that Bang’s experience in mobilizing private and public resources to deal with some critical challenges of the time includes climate change.

Adding to the Biden statement, Janet Yellen, the Treasury Secretary, further stated with his knowledge, the World Bank can achieve its goal of spreading wealth. Further, it can prevent severe poverty while the organization changes.

John Kerry, Biden’s climate envoy, also supported Banga’s nomination for this position. Kerry went on to say that Banga could be the right person to implement new policies that drastically reduce the amount of money needed to reduce global emissions. It will help to develop the countries, create resilience, adapt, and even have the greenhouse houses’ impact mitigated.

The United States had come up with the World Bank in a traditional way. Since the head of its sister agency is basically from Europe, the critics are now looking forward to ending this arrangement. The focus is more on developing countries, which will have a bigger voice in both organizations. With this pact, the World Bank plans to conduct a merit-based yet open selection process through nominations on March 29.

Eric LeCompte, executive director of the anti-poverty coalition, believes that the US wants to nominate someone who will garner more support from developing countries. It is relevant as Banga was born in India. They would want to hire people with great experience and roots in other economies.

Presently, the bank is under pressure to expand the mandate, which is an effort that needs the next president to ensure the donor countries offer additional money. With this headline being the best news website’s primary attention for now, people are hoping that banks will be able to help poor countries finance projects so they can prepare for and deal with climatic changes.