Washington - Leading member nations of the World Bank agreed Sunday to step up the lender's role in fighting global warming, urged donors to boost help for the poorest countries and welcomed the growing strength of emerging economies like China as aid providers. The commitment to tackling the effects of climate change, approved by a 24-member steering committee that sets priorities for the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, was part of the post-World War II-era aid agencies' drive to modernize and counter questions about their relevance.
For Robert Zoellick, the former US deputy secretary of state who has led the World Bank since July, the weekend meetings of the two institutions was a first chance to present his agenda for revitalizing the 185-nation anti-poverty agency.
An immediate challenge is to win pledges from donor nations for an ambitious expansion of aid to the 81 poorest countries to 3.5 billion dollars over the next three-year period, more than double the level of the previous period. Zoellick said he felt encouraged after his talks with the panel.
"I leave with a sense of positive momentum," he told reporters. "There's a lot of work to do."
Fighting global warming is a hot-button topic especially for European nations, ahead of a December meeting in Bali, Indonesia, which is meant to set the stage for international efforts to curb emissions of greenhouse gases after 2012.
Under Sunday's decision, the World Bank will work up a "strategic framework" for supporting developing countries' efforts to adapt to climate change and "achieve low-carbon growth while reducing poverty."
Efforts to improve the lives of people in poorer nations should focus more strongly on private-sector growth, but rich nations also must live up to their aid commitments, the panel said.
Emerging new donors and creditors "bring much-needed resources and development knowledge," but their aid can only be effective if it is in line with the receiving country's policy priorities, the panel said.
Zoellick said investment by China, the most prominent of the new development helpers, "can be very beneficial" for Africa and Latin America.
"At the same time, there will be issues that the countries need to face in terms of the transparency of the investment and how it fits with past efforts at debt forgiveness and whether this is just going to increase the debt level," he said.
When Zoellick presented his agenda before the weekend meetings, he singled out the Arab world as an area that needed help with economic and social modernization. However, the steering committee's statement did not mention that point.
