World Bank

The World Bank is the world’s pre-eminent development institution leading global efforts to promote economic growth, sustainable development and poverty reduction. In this report, we focus on the International Development Association (IDA), the arm of the World Bank, which provides grants and interest-free loans to poor countries. A new funding and policy framework was agreed for IDA, the 16th replenishment, in December 2010 and will run for the period 2011-2014. IDA16’s total replenishment is set at $49.3 billion with finance provided from a number of sources, including donor contributions amounting to $26.4 billion from 51 donors. The UK, which is the second largest contributor to IDA16, is pledged to contribute £2,664 million. The agreed priorities for IDA16 include fragile and conflict-affected states, gender and climate change.

We support the scale of the UK contribution and the priorities for IDA16. We support the establishment of a permanent Crisis Response Window to help poor countries affected by a natural or economic disaster. However, we call for improvements in a number of areas.

DFID should press for:

• improvements in the Bank’s procurement process

• an open and meritocratic process for selecting the current President’s successor • a more equitable allocation of voting shares for developing countries. However, the UK, as one of the largest contributors, should retain sufficient influence within the Bank • the Independent Evaluation Group, which assesses the Bank's activities, to be strengthened • the Bank’s achievements on gender to be closely monitored to ensure that the promotion of girls’ education is an early priority for IDA16 • affordable energy access for the poor, a faster transition to low carbon energy use, and more support to improve the financial viability of renewable energy.

We welcome further engagement by the Bank with Parliamentarians and civil society in developing countries. To facilitate a wider debate within the House on the UK's decision to provide substantial sums to IDA, we call for the draft order to approve the UK’s contribution to the IDA16 replenishment to be debated on the floor of the House.