The World Bank

The World Bank Group (WBG) is an international organisation owned by its 187 member countries, including the United Kingdom.

The WBG is made up of five organisations. The UK mainly works with the following four:

• the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) which lends funds at close to market rates to middle income countries such as Brazil, Turkey and South Africa
• the International Development Association (IDA) which provides grants and loans to the poorest countries in the world such as Malawi, Afghanistan and Sierra Leone
• the International Finance Corporation (IFC) which lends to and invests in private sector companies in developing countries
• the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) which provides insurance. 

The UK's multilateral aid review, which assessed IDA and IFC, found that they were two of the most effective multilateral institutions that DFID works with. However, there are areas in which the WBG does need to improve.

Over the next twelve months DFID will be focusing our engagement with the Bank in the following areas:

• improving focus on achieving results and efficiency
• improving its performance in fragile states
• making progress on climate change
• increasing the impact the IFC has on poverty reduction through its activities in low income and fragile countries
• enhancing its impact on off-track Millennium Development Goals, including girls and women.

Read the UK engagement with the World Bank Group report for more information about how we will work with the World Bank.

Delivering results

In 2010, the IBRD, IDA, IFC and MIGA together committed more than $70 billion (USD) to development assistance. These funds will be used to deliver results in almost all areas of development, including education and health, infrastructure, energy and agriculture.

Between 2011 and 2015, IDA will:

• construct or rehabilitate between 37,000-44,000 km of road
• immunise up to 116 million children
• provide up to one million pregnant women with antenatal care.

How DFID is involved

DFID's financial involvement with the World Bank takes three forms:

• as a 4.22% shareholder of the IBRD and a 5.02% shareholder of the IFC
• as a contributor to IDA
• through DFID country programmes.

The Secretary of State for International Development is the UK's Governor to the bank and represents the UK on the the bank's main multilateral forum - the Development Committee - deciding on many key issues such as how the Bank spends its income. The Development Committee meets twice a year, in the Spring and Autumn.

IDA receives new funding every three years in a process called a 'replenishment'. The UK is one of 51 countries who have contributed to the sixteenth replenishment (known as IDA16), which totalled $49.3 billion (USD). The UK will provide £2.6 billion (GBP) to IDA16 between 2011/2012 and 2014/15.