World Bank official: Development is stalling where the world's poorest need it most

As international cooperation faces growing strain, the World Bank's Vice President for Development Finance, Aki Nishio, warns that development progress is becoming increasingly uneven, with some of the world's poorest countries left behind by the combined impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, declining aid, conflict and climate change.

The International Development Association (IDA), a key part of the World Bank, focuses much of its efforts on fragile and conflict-affected states. Around 40 per cent of IDA financing is directed towards countries facing the greatest instability and vulnerability.

In these regions, issues such as poverty, weak institutions, and conflict often overlap making development particularly difficult.

Yet Nishio stresses that supporting these countries is not only a humanitarian responsibility, but a global necessity. "If we have another pandemic emerging in one of these countries, the whole world will be affected."

He explains that weak healthcare systems can allow diseases to spread undetected, crossing borders and becoming global threats. Strengthening health services, infrastructure and basic public services is therefore essential not only for local communities, but for international stability as well.

Nishio then goes on to argue that while economic indicators remain important, the true measure of development is found in people's everyday lives. Speaking shortly after a visit to Kenya, he uses the country as an example, describing its remarkable progress since becoming an IDA recipient in the 1960s.

Since then, in fact, life expectancy has nearly doubled, while access to healthcare has expanded dramatically. "When you see these quantum changes", he says, "you can really see how people's lives have improved".