Ajay Banga: World Bank nominee to tour countries including China

Ajay Banga, the US nominee to lead the World Bank, said he was going to visit Europe, Asia, Africa, and potentially Latin America in the coming weeks and emphasised that he believed the scientific evidence on climate change.

The ex-Mastercard CEO said he will meet with donor countries and borrowers, he told reporters on Thursday, underscoring the need for the bank to continue to work on poverty reduction and inequality, while also tackling the “intertwined” challenges posed by climate change.

“You cannot have economic prosperity without caring about nature, pandemics, fragility, food availability - this is our new world,” Mr Banga said. “You need to understand that the challenges are multiplied and are multipolar.”

US president Joe Biden nominated the 63-year-old India-born executive to lead the World Bank, banking on his decades of experience in emerging markets and ties to the private sector, to bring fresh momentum to a US-led push to overhaul the 77-year-old institution to better address climate change.

Mr Banga, now a US citizen, would replace outgoing president David Malpass, who resigned last month after months of controversy over his refusal to accept the scientific consensus on climate change.

Mr Banga said he had already won support from India, Ghana, and Kenya, and hoped to visit as many countries around the world as possible to understand their priorities and concerns to “hit the ground running” if he was elected.

Mr Banga is most likely to be overtaking the job that oversees billions of dollars of funding for developing countries as traditionally a nominee by the US, the lender’s dominant shareholder since its founding at the end of World War II, has been heading the World Bank.

However, this year, there have been calls to open up the process and the Bank will accept nominations from other countries until 29 March with the final decision lying with its board which will take a call in May before the term of Mr Malpass ends in June.

Mr Banga, who oversaw the expansion of Mastercard’s market capitalisation to $360bn from $20bn during his 12-year tenure there, stressed the importance of securing private sector investment to generate the trillions of dollars needed to combat climate change and eradicate extreme poverty, referencing his work on the Partnership for Central America, which generated over $4bn in private funds.

He also highlighted his upbringing, education and early career in India and added that the US objective was to bring “a different way of thinking to leadership at the bank,” reflecting on criticism that the Biden administration had not picked a woman to lead the bank for the first time in its history.

He said he was convinced that “giving people a level playing field is our job ... and that means whether you’re a woman, your colour, your sexual orientation, growing up on the wrong side of the tracks, it doesn’t matter.”

“This is not about gender. It’s about a fair opportunity for everyone,” Mr Banga said.

Additional reporting by agencies