World Bank launches pandemic trust fund, confirms extreme challenges in developing countries

By Adeleye Kunle

The World Bank Group has launched a new trust fund for Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness, and Response (PPR).

The President, David Malpass said the United States-backed support will assess and strengthen health preparedness throughout the developing world.

The economic expert delivered a speech on Thursday at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) ahead of the 2022 WBG-IMF Annual Meetings.

Noting that a tough reality confronts the global economy, Malpass said a series of harsh events and unprecedented macroeconomic policies are throwing development into crisis.

The chief assured of World Bank’s commitment to alleviate poverty and boost shared prosperity, announcing that support for developing countries, especially for climate-related finance, reached $31.7billion in 2022.

He hinted that the Group’s upcoming Poverty and Shared Prosperity report suggests that the deterioration in development progress began well ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Malpass noted that developing countries were facing an extremely challenging near-term outlook due to the shocks in recent years.

The factors include higher food, fertilizer and energy prices, rising interest rates and credit spreads, currency depreciation, and capital outflows.

Malpass said global energy production may take years to diversify away from Russia, prolonging the stagflation highlighted in the World Bank’s Global Economic Prospects