Never let a pandemic go to waste: turbocharging the private sector for development at the World Bank

Abstract

This article scrutinises the first four months of the World Bank Group’s Covid-19 response and reveals a persistent prioritisation of private over public interests. The Group’s private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation, and its financial sector clients, have prevailed in terms of emergency resource allocations. And, while support from the Group’s public sector arms has been portrayed as aiming to strengthen public systems, recipient countries have been urged not to forego structural reforms in support of the private sector. This includes an enhanced focus on public–private partnerships to deliver ostensibly public services. The institution has seized the current crisis as an opportunity to intensify its “Maximising Finance for Development” approach.