United States President Joe Biden has nominated an Indian-American born Ajaypal Singh Banga as the next president of the World Bank.
Biden nominated Banga on February 23 after the sitting WB boss David Malpass recently announced his intention to step down by the end of June 2023.
Banga is the current vice chairman at General Atlantic and former chief executive officer of Mastercard.
He began his global tour on March 6, 2023, with his first stop in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
In Abidjan, the American business executive met African Development Bank Group (AfDB) President Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, senior management and the Board of Directors.
Adesina welcomed Banga’s call for a regenerated partnership and said that there was a need for a new way of working between the World Bank and the African Development Bank.
“It is more than financial. It’s more about how we work to optimise resources by engaging governments, the private sector, and other stakeholders to deliver meaningful change,” said Adesina.
According to Banga, three challenges have ailing the world including inequality, the tension between humanity and nature, and the tendency to apply short-term solutions to long-term problems which only deliver poor results.
He emphasized the role of technology in helping to tackle these challenges.
On his first trip on the continent, Banga talked about the role of the private sector in mobilizing much-needed capital resources for significant economic development.
This, according to him, applied both to private sector capital, as well as to private sector ingenuity and innovation, which are needed to tackle the many challenges facing the world.
