Washington (EFE) , although it regrets the global setbacks that have occurred.
“I do not regret anything (…) but for me, who have worked for so long in development, it is a challenge to see any setback,” he said in a talk held at the Atlantic Council in Washington.
And it is that the coronavirus, first, and now the war, have produced a notable setback in global growth, which is “the big problem” today, Malpass said.
“We talked about the reversal of development in many parts of the world in recent years. It has been going backwards in terms of median income, in terms of poverty, in terms of education, health and the weather makes it difficult,” he stated.
Malpass made these statements a few days before the start of the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.
David Malpass controversies
Proposed by Donald Trump, Malpass informed the organization’s Executive Board on February 15 of his intention to leave office on June 30.
Because he seeks to pursue new challenges that he hopes to find “in the public company,” he said on Tuesday without giving further details.
The World Bank is now in the process of electing a new president and everything seems to indicate that it will be the Indian-American executive Ajay Banga.
Banga – currently vice president of the General Atlantic fund and who also served as executive president of Mastercard – is the only candidate presented.
Malpass’s role was called into question after he repeatedly avoided answering in a panel discussion last September whether he recognized the scientific consensus that humans burning fossil fuels were heating up the planet rapidly and dangerously.
This attitude, which he later tried to amend by assuring that he was not a climate change denier, led some climate activists to request his resignation.
Tips for your successor
Today Malpass spoke briefly about the environment, precisely in a question about the advice he would give his successor.
“I would recommend that you be very committed to the countries that are the beneficiaries of the bank’s subsidies. (…). Action involves convincing developing countries to make the changes they need, including those related to climate change adaptation,” he explained.
He gave an example, that the WB is trying to make governments see that it is necessary to prevent populations from growing around the alluvial plains, because despite being more fertile, they flood easily.
He admitted that it is “very difficult for countries to do that because people want to move to where there is available land, often in a floodplain.”
“So how do you set policies to really steer in a better direction? Those are the real challenges for the daily operation of the bank,” he explained.
In Malpass’s opinion, “stressful” times are coming for the world economy, especially for developing countries, largely due to the end of zero-rate interest rates.
“The rates were at zero and now they are not, they have returned to more normal levels. And the dislocation is huge,” she noted.
