Ajay Banga News

USIN Foundation, a think tank, and The Synodical Board of Social Services of The Church of North India (CNI) among others. While USIN was issued FCRA licence early this month, CNI's application was approved a few months earlier, said officials aware of the matter. US India Strategic Partnership Forum-backed USIN Foundation has Ajay Banga, president, World Bank, and Indra Nooyi, former chairman, Pepsico, as its founding members. The FCRA licence has been granted for five years to each of the NGOs. USIN Foundation has been granted licences for economic activities whereas CNI can carry out activities under six different heads such as religious, cultural, economic, educational and social, added officials. An email query sent to USIN Foundation and CNI Trust remained unanswered till press time.

World Bank officials, including President Ajay Banga, have faced criticism for flying private jets to a UN climate summit while advocating for carbon reduction. Critics have condemned their actions as «hypocrisy,» citing the massive carbon footprint of their travel and the organization's lavish spending habits.

Narendra Modi on Monday shared a hearty laughter with French President Emmanuel Macron and World Bank President Ajay Banga, on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. A video posted on Macron’s official X (formerly Twitter) account captured the candid exchange, in which Macron warmly greets PM Modi with a hug, and Banga lightens the mood with a witty remark. In the clip, Banga approaches the two leaders and, turning to PM Modi, jokes: «He [Macron] is going from one Indian to another,» prompting laughter from both Modi and Macron.

Donald Trump as President of the United States won't throw the World Bank (WB) off course in meeting its climate targets, the anti-poverty lender's President Ajay Banga said. «Let's watch his actions, watch his deeds and work with him on explaining why these things are good for American business, for European businesses, and for everybody else,» he said in an interview with Bloomberg TV on Tuesday.

₹16.13 trillion (4.9 % of GDP), is lower than the 5.1 % of GDP targeted in the interim budget. The latest GDP estimate for 2024-25 of ₹326.37 trillion is close to that used in the interim budget. Even so, the absolute reduction in the FD budgeted, by ₹72,000 crore, is more informative than in terms of percentages of GDP.

By David Lawder

International advocacy organization Global Citizen is turning to Gen Z and millennial leaders in its fight to reach the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and end extreme poverty

World Bank Group has set up a task force to study recommendations of the Independent Expert Group (IEG) on reform of multilateral development banks, set up under India's G20 presidency. This was conveyed by World Bank president Ajay Banga to Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday.

Nirmala Sitharaman met World Bank Group president Ajay Banga and discussed recommendations to strengthen Multilateral Development Banks (MDB), the finance ministry said on Wednesday. Finance minister Sitharaman and Banga also discussed the outcomes of the G20 under the Indian presidency and the evolution of the World Bank and its engagement with India in various sectors, besides issues of mutual interest, the finance ministry said on social media platform X.

World Bank is working with a club of 15 finance bosses to lower the risk of investing in climate projects in emerging economies and attract private capital for cutting emissions. Ajay Banga, the World Bank's president, said the Private Sector Investment Lab is focused on «figuring out a model of originate-to-distribute» that would allow for deep-pocketed investors to put up large sums for climate deals. The creation of a «securitizable asset class in these kinds of investments, where large pension funds, large players like BlackRock will find a very attractive place to put billions to work,» is a key target, he said at the Bloomberg Business Forum at COP28. PSIL, which launched in June under the auspices of the World Bank, also includes BlackRock Inc.'s chief Larry Fink, AXA SA Chief Executive Officer Thomas Buberl and Noel Quinn, head of HSBC Plc. The group is focused on specific approaches that the World Bank can implement after years of struggling to mobilize the vast sums of money needed to help developing countries adapt to climate change and transition to clean energy. The World Bank has also stepped up action on other fronts, including allowing some vulnerable countries to potentially pause debt repayments and hosting a fund for climate damages. Shriti Vadera, who co-chairs PSIL, said the group is working on financial guarantees because these are «the most efficient and most well-known and used form of credit support.» The PSIL has looked at first-loss and whole-portfolio guarantees, said Vadera, who is chair of Prudential Plc. The goal is for the World Bank to «create a much more simplified set of guarantee products that can be used across different markets,» she said.

International Finance Corporation is looking to develop a guarantee facility for private investors to boost finance for greener construction in emerging markets, as growing populations, urbanization and industrialization are set to spur pollution far beyond safe limits. IFC, the world’s largest global development institution focused on the private sector in low-income countries, is working with its counterparts in the World Bank Group to “create a one-stop shop for guarantees offered to private investors,” Susan Lund, vice president for economics and private sector development, told Bloomberg in an interview. We have “really high aspirations to scale that up dramatically for climate finance and in particular for green buildings and decarbonizing the construction sector,” she said. Lund’s comments follow a recent speech given by World Bank President Ajay Banga who said the bank is working to better unify guarantee insurance across the institutions. The IFC typically provides commercial financing priced at market rates.

Economic crises are rippling through the countries bordering Israel

Saudi Arabia aimed at deal brokering, as a violent conflict between Israel and Hamas that has killed thousands of people unfolds. The annual event is typically used by attendees as an opportunity to build relationships with some of Saudi Arabia's biggest companies and its $778-billion sovereign wealth fund, drawn by the promise of deals as the kingdom embarks on an ambitious reform plan to wean its economy off oil. But an escalation between Islamist group Hamas and Israel into a broader conflict overshadowed the event dubbed «Davos in the Desert», a nod to the annual gathering of world leaders and corporate bosses in the Swiss Alps. Geopolitical tensions heightened by the Middle East conflict pose the biggest threat to the world economy, World Bank President Ajay Banga said. «There is so much going on in the world and geopolitics in the wars that you're seeing and what just happened recently in Israel and Gaza. At the end of the day, when you put all this together, I think the impact on economic development is even more serious,» Banga said. Although the globe's top financiers dwelt little on the conflict, speaking about topics such as artificial intelligence, the economic fallout of war combined with record debts as rates rise created a bleak backdrop. «There's no question if these things are not resolved, it probably means more global terrorism, which means more insecurity, which means society is going to be fearful… and… we see contractions in our economies,» BlackRock Chairman and CEO Laurence Fink said. Fink was flanked on a panel at the Future Investment Initiative (FII) conference by bank CEOs including Goldman Sachs' David Solomon, JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon and Citi's Jane Fraser.

Top economists and central bankers appear to be in agreement on one thing: interest rates will stay higher for longer, clouding the outlook for global markets.

MARRAKECH, Morocco (Reuters) — The World Bank on Friday said it is bolstering collaboration with nine multilateral development banks (MDBs) to accelerate its vision of a liveable planet free of poverty.

The prospect that high interest rates will keep constricting the global economy is worrying World Bank officials as they look to the impact on nations nursing large debts.

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With Israeli airstrikes marking thefifth day of escalating conflict between Israel and Hamas on Wednesday, experts are warning of rising oil prices and inflationary pressure as a potential consequence of the ongoing hostilities.

World Bank's new president, Ajay Banga, said Wednesday that the global lender must become «better» and «bigger» to boost its capacity to help developing countries battle climate change, poverty and pandemics. Banga, who was appointed in June, made his plea at the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank in the southern Moroccan city of Marrakesh where reform of the Washington-based institutions is a major agenda item. The former CEO of Mastercard has previously vowed to «fix the plumbing» at the bank, saying it was «dysfunctional» despite a dedicated staff. Banga said at a press conference on Wednesday that a «deep cultural change» is needed at an «institution that has a proud history and done an amazing job over the last 78 years.» He noted that countries have to deal with various departments and that it can take 27 months between the time a project is discussed and is finally approved. «The idea of a better bank is a bank that works better with itself, is more efficient in its own processes,» Banga said. The Indian-born, naturalised US citizen has vowed to made climate change a top priority after he took over from David Malpass, a former US Treasury official who stepped down early from his five-year term amid questions about his stance on the issue. Banga wants to redefine the vision of the bank towards «eradicating poverty on a liveable planet». He said poverty, pandemics and climate change were «almost like a perfect storm» that can no longer be treated separately. Oscar Soria, campaign director for the non-profit Avaaz, said the IMF and World Bank are not moving fast enough. «While changes are promised, they are too incremental, timid and slow,» Soria told AFP, adding that countries hit by several crises

Reuters. Addressing a news conference here, Banga said wars are extremely challenging for central banks that are trying to find a way to steer their economies toward a soft landing.

World Bank President Ajay Banga said on Tuesday that the Israel-Gaza conflict is an unnecessary global economic shock that will make it harder for central banks to achieve soft landings in many economies if it spreads. «It's a humanitarian tragedy and it's an economic shock we don't need,» Banga told Reuters on the sidelines of the World Bank-International Monetary Fund annual meetings in Morocco. Central banks were «beginning to feel a little more confident that there was an opportunity for a soft landing, and this just makes it harder», Banga said. Banga said there was less immediate economic impact than at the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year because the Israel-Gaza conflict does not impact exports of oil, grains and fertilizers. But it does transmit through financial markets, with dollar assets suddenly rising, he said. Inflation has come down in recent months, prices and wages were stabilizing and markets had become used to the idea that rates would stay higher for longer, Banga said, adding that another prolonged conflict could upset those dynamics. «It's the side effects of all that.