IFC Insights
As the sun set on the Landwasser valley in eastern Switzerland and this year’s World Econonomic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting in Davos, government, business, and civil society leaders from across the globe headed home to promote the forum’s mandate of bold collective action to address ongoing crises.
As investment into developing nations drops, MIGA innovates. 
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development recently reported that global foreign direct investment (FDI) flows dropped by almost a third in the second quarter of 2022, with flows to several emerging regions down significantly and flows to Africa near zero. The outlook for FDI next year is gloomy at best.
The COVID-19 pandemic is far from over, and vaccines remain our most important tool for 
helping every country overcome it and get on the path to recovery.
Since February, much of the world’s attention has shifted to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the risks it poses to global supplies of food and energy. And the war is coming on top of many other crises – climate change, conflict in many other places, record numbers of refugees, and a rise in poverty for the first time in decades. But even among these daunting global challenges,
Conflict, COVID and climate change have combined to create unprecedented challenges for developing countries. At these Spring Meetings – taking place in the shadow of war in Ukraine – the World Bank Group will convene leaders, experts and activists to discuss the impact of these global shocks on the most vulnerable communities.
A few weeks ago, the international community agreed to a record $93 billion financing package for the world’s poorest countries. This support will be delivered through the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) over the next three years, starting in July.
We often hear that climate change disproportionately impacts the poor and the scenarios
are worrisome. For example,
Beneath this alarming headline, we know that climate-related losses will fluctuate across time and geographies. Impacts on people will be as varied and specific as household income sources and consumption patterns.
But
unless they get all children and young people back to school, keep them in class, and recover the central elements of learning, this generation could lose twice or three times that amount in earning losses.
The first impact was the millions of lives lost due to the disease caused by the COVID 19 virus. The second was the human suffering caused by job instability and poverty. The third is on children and youth who should have been in school but were told to stay at home.
September 26, 1960 marked the beginning of a new chapter in the World Bank’s history b
y introducing one of the most effective instruments in the global fight to eradicate poverty: “The International Development Association (IDA), a new international agency for financing economic growth in the less developed countries, came into being today as an affiliate of the World Bank,” read the release.
As the global economy gradually finds its way out of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are 
reminded each day of the fragility of recovery – threatened by new variants, outbreaks, and case spikes. It’s also a recovery that is uneven and unequal. Many low- and middle-income countries continue to face high levels of transmission as well as bottlenecks to vaccination, which contribute to business activity remaining below pre-pandemic levels.
Netherlands for the World Bank 