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David Malpass' advice to World Bank successor: time is short
In his final interview as president of the World Bank Group, David Malpass spoke with Ian Bremmer on GZERO World to reflect on his time leading the global development organization and to share his advice for his successor, Ajay Banga.
Malpass became president of the World Bank in 2019 and has seen the world change significantly during his term. He says he’s proud of how the bank handled major global challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and the Afghanistan evacuation. He also thinks the bank did a good job raising the alarm about an impending economic crisis: slow growth and skyrocketing global debt.
“We had a core vision that we want people in developing countries to have better lives tomorrow than today,” Malpass says.
When it comes to the insight he’d offer to the next World Bank president, Malpass has three simple words of advice: time is short.
Malpass stresses that now is the moment to really rethink fiscal and monetary policy to create a more equitable global economy, one where all the capital isn’t flowing to a centralized point. According to Malpass, part of the job of the World Bank president is to have tough conversations about the major challenges in the world, like debt and climate, to get advanced economies to take action.
“Who’s going to stand up to the advanced economies and say, ‘You’re taking all the money so there’s not enough left for the rest of the 6 billion people in the world?’”
Watch the episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer: World Bank's David Malpass on global debt & economic inequality
Podcast: Fix the global debt crisis before it's too late, warns World Bank's David Malpass
Listen: In his final interview as World Bank president, David Malpass sits down with Ian Bremmer on the GZERO World podcast to discuss all things debt. No, not your credit card or mortgage payments, but the sovereign debt that governments use to pay their bills.
Global debt has ballooned to an eye-watering $300 trillion due to decades of low interest that made borrowing money extremely cheap, followed by runaway inflation driven by the pandemic and war in Ukraine. This dynamic has forced a lot of nations––particularly the poorest––to borrow more money than it can pay back.
In a wide-ranging interview, Malpass explains how the global debt crisis got so bad and whether there's any hope of averting economic disaster before it's too late. He also reflects on his tenure as World Bank president, advice for his successor, China's emergence in the 21st century as the world's creditor, and why the US debt limit law needs to be rewritten.
Subscribe to the GZERO World Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published.- Odds of a global recession? 50/50, says David Malpass ›
- Explaining the long history of US debt (& which other countries are saddled with debt) ›
- US debt default would be "destabilizing," says World Bank's David Malpass ›
- World faces "lost decade" of economic growth, says World Bank economist ›
- Inequality isn't inevitable - if global communities cooperate ›
- Graphic Truth: Global inequality ›
- Debt limits of rich countries hurt poor countries' growth, says World Bank's Malpass - GZERO Media ›
- Ian Explains: Why is global debt so high? - GZERO Media ›
- World Bank economist: The poorest are getting poorer globally - GZERO Media ›
The world "is more coupled than we think"
Rania Al-Mashat, the Egyptian Minister of International Cooperation, tells GZERO's Tony Maciulis that the pandemic taught us how interconnected we truly are; no one nation can solve a problem as big as climate change, food insecurity, or geopolitical strife on its own. Al-Mashat makes the case for looking beyond the short term problems of inflation and toward longer-term solutions for the most pressing issues of our time.
In a conversation at the World Bank/IMF spring meetings in Washington, DC, she explains the key outcomes of last year's UN Climate Conference COP27, held in her home country, and what the road ahead looks like for climate financing and confronting the looming sovereign debt crisis.
Al-Mashat also states that in the coming months we will learn the new framework and path forward for the World Bank and IMF, institutions whose models have been both challenged and criticized during this historic period of global crises.
Episode 2: The economic power of women
Listen: "Women control a third of the world's global wealth today, and they make 70% of household consumption decisions. It is a segment that we all have to be focused on, because the success of the women as a whole is going to continue to drive economic prosperity for all of our countries around the world," says Ida Liu, Global Head of Citi Private Bank.
In the latest episode of Living Beyond Borders, a podcast produced in partnership between GZERO and Citi Global Wealth Investments, Liu joins Eurasia Group’s Celeste Tambaro for a candid conversation about the reasons why increased participation of women in the workforce and in leadership creates greater growth for companies and economies.
Women were disproportionately impacted by job loss during the pandemic, but there are indications that is changing as employment numbers climb back to levels seen before March 2020. Still, there is a long way to go toward equity, as Liu and Tambaro explain.
This episode is moderated by Shari Friedman, Eurasia Group’s Managing Director of Climate and Sustainability.
Shari Friedman
Managing Director of Climate and Sustainability, Eurasia Group
Ida Liu
Global Head, Citi Private Bank
Celeste Tambaro,
Managing Director, Financial Institutions, Eurasia Group
A young woman lies in hospital after reports of poisoning at an unspecified location in Iran in this still image from video from March 2, 2023.
Hard Numbers: Iranian schoolgirls poisoned, Macron declares Françafrique “over,” Biden tries to tackle fraud, a rare miracle in southern Turkey
17: The Iranian government says it’s investigating a spate of alleged poisonings of schoolgirls, with at least 17 hospitalized in Tehran and elsewhere this week, adding to the hundreds of girls hospitalized in recent months. Masih Alinejad, who recently appeared on GZERO World, says that many Iranians believe the Islamic Republic is behind the attacks and is using them to punish school girls who recently came out in droves to protest the government.
4: “The age of Francafrique is well over,” President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday as he began a four-nation tour to Gabon, Angola, the Republic of Congo, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Macron said he’ll continue to pull French troops from the region in the coming months after withdrawing soldiers from Mali and Burkina Faso last year.
1.6 billion: President Joe Biden on Thursday asked Congress to approve $1.6 billion to combat fraud related to pandemic relief programs. The White House faced mounting criticism after swindlers took advantage of its generous $5 trillion COVID-era stimulus.
23: Good news alert! Alex the dog was found alive under rubble in Hatay, Turkey, 23 days after a deadly earthquake decimated southern Turkey and northern Syria. Watching Alex lick the ear of his rescuer is a rare joy.
2022 has been rough. Will 2023 be any better?
2022 has been the year of converging crises: the ongoing pandemic, climate change, economic turmoil, and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Lots of gloom and doom, indeed.
But in all these crises, there is an opportunity to bounce back with solutions to make the world a better place. Think of how the war in Ukraine united the West more than ever against a common enemy.
How? Good question. We asked several experts during the Global Stage livestream conversation "The Road to 2030: Getting Global Goals Back on Track," hosted by GZERO in partnership with Microsoft.
For Ian Bremmer, president of Eurasia Group and GZERO, the main reason for hope in 2023 is that this year some people realized that there are big problems worth fixing. Although we definitely live in a G-zero world with a vacuum of global leadership, he adds, we've also seen unprecedented Western unity that would not have happened without Russia invading Ukraine. Ian believes that resistance to a negotiated solution to the war will come from the developing world and that Elon Musk is definitely complicating things with how he's running Twitter.
Microsoft President Brad Smith discussed the UN Sustainable Development Goals, which at their halfway point he sees as a "glass half full, half empty" but questions how progress is being measured. Also, Smith sees Russia turning to civilians in Ukraine because its military is losing against Ukrainian soldiers, which he regards as the opposite of what the world agreed to do after World War II. On climate, he doesn't see things in good shape after COP27 but hopes today's multiple ongoing crises will push us to do more things together.
Melissa Fleming, the UN's Undersecretary-General for Global Communications, laments there is so much more to be done to make the world a better place next year, but there's so much lethargy amid all the gloom and doom. She also braces for Ukraine's tough winter as Russia targets the country's energy infrastructure. Fleming is worried about a disturbing spike in climate change disinformation, which has returned to the denial narrative when people most need to be informed about what's happening to the planet.
Khadija Mayman from the Whitaker Peace & Development Initiative underscores the need for young people in her community to get mental health support. Other types of support would be welcome, too — youth want to do the work, but they can't wait forever for jobs, so we need to help create businesses that'll employ them.
Hindou Ibrahim, co-chair of the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change, says that we can't protect biodiversity without first recognizing Indigenous peoples' rights to land and access to finance. We must all be partners, she adds, and Indigenous peoples are the "CEOs" (chief ecological officers) of the planet's biodiversity.
Dr. Omnia El Omrani, Youth Envoy for COP27 and SDG Champion, resents how young people's voices are excluded from the global climate conversation while they are disproportionately impacted by the effects of climate change. She wants to create a space for young people to be able to shape their own futures without killing their dreams.
This livestream is the latest in the Webby-nominated Global Stage series, a partnership between GZERO and Microsoft that examines critical issues at the intersection of technology, politics, and society.
- COVID's impact on education and its long-term geopolitical consequences: Gerald Butts ›
- Who can solve the world's "emergency of global proportions"? ›
- Is the world coming apart? Drama at Davos ›
- Top Risks 2022: We’re done with the pandemic, but the pandemic ain’t done with us ›
- Russia freezing out Ukrainian civilians because it can't beat military, says Microsoft's Brad Smith - GZERO Media ›
- We can't fix climate change without protecting biodiversity, says UNFCCC official - GZERO Media ›
Inflation, war, climate headline at UN General Assembly
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
As high-level week at UNGA gets underway, that's United Nations General Assembly, what is top of mind for visiting world leaders?
I don't know. How about war on the ground in Europe? How about massive inflation happening in food prices and energy prices around the world? How about how the Europeans get through a very cold winter and what happens as a consequence of that when they don't have enough energy, and prices are like two, three, four, five times what they were last year? How about climate change ongoing and still becoming a bigger and bigger problem every year? Lots to talk about at UNGA, depends on who you talk to though. Depends on who you talk to.
Is Putin looking to end the war in Ukraine as President Erdogan of Turkey suggests.
It's interesting. I was with the president of Kazakhstan yesterday, President Tokayev, and he also suggested that in his meeting with Putin, the fact that Putin said that he was interested in talking to Zelensky and opening negotiations without preconditions, which he certainly wasn't saying before, struck him as significant. Look, who knows at the end of the day if Putin would be willing to start talks. But what is very clear is that Putin's willingness to accept an outcome of the war is nowhere close to what would be remotely acceptable to Zelensky and the Ukrainian people. Putin is not going willing to give up the territory that they have captured since February 24th. And the Ukrainians believe that by fighting, they can potentially take it back. So I don't think we are anywhere close to an end to the fighting in Ukraine, over Ukraine, and more broadly between Russia and NATO.
President Biden says "the pandemic is over". Is it?
Well, I mean, it feels over in the United States, though a lot of people are still dying of COVID. But of course, a lot of people die of a lot of things in the United States. I will say that in China, the pandemic is most definitively not over and that's because most of the Chinese had never gotten COVID. A disturbing number of elderly Chinese still haven't gotten vaccines. The vaccines they have aren't very effective and as a consequence, that's one of the biggest things that's driving all these lockdowns, rolling lockdowns, driving significant problems on the ground. I'm not going to China. You're not going to China. Why not? Because there's still a pandemic. Clearly, Biden didn't care about that when he was asked the question, but that wasn't what he was talking about. He was talking about the US. He looked around, think it was an auto show or something, and said nobody's wearing mask. Pandemic must be over. Hey, that means the pandemic has been over in Florida for like two years. Awesome. I don't know. We'll see what you say about that. Talk to you soon.
COVID's impact on education and its long-term geopolitical consequences: Gerald Butts
It's not just kids spending too much time on their screens because they got so used to doing everything remotely during the pandemic.
The impact of COVID-related educational disruption - and the growing inequality gap - could have big geopolitical fallout in the future. Why?
Because with diminished education comes fewer economic opportunities. That will likely exacerbate already deep divisions, says Eurasia Group Vice Chairman Gerald Butts.
As a result, he adds, watch out for more future disrupted politics around the world, both within countries and between countries.
Butts spoke during a Global Stage livestream on September 15, 2022: "Live from the UN General Assembly: Transforming Education"
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- Eurasia Group's Gerald Butts: US climate change debate has moved ... ›
- Europe plans for Putin & Trump 2.0 - GZERO Media ›
- Overcoming inefficiency with education - GZERO Media ›
- 2022 has been rough. Will 2023 be any better? - GZERO Media ›
- Eddie Ndopu: "People with disabilities need to be in leadership" - GZERO Media ›