World leaders gathered this week in Marrakech for the final meetings under the Indian Presidency of the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors (FMCBG) and Finance and Central Bank Deputies (FCBD), and for the annual meetings of the World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Ahead of the meetings, the attention of the infrastructure ecosystem was focused on how the meetings would advance multilateral development bank (MDB) reforms, what new signals would be sent on increasing private sector investment, and if and how the stage would be set for meaningful outcomes at COP28.
“Several cooperative solutions and reforms are poised for implementation at a larger scale … These include global cooperation to scale project preparation and infrastructure financing approaches like blended finance and de-risking instruments, reforms of multilateral development bank financing frameworks, and a suite of actions by the public and private sectors to help infrastructure adapt to the changing climate. We want to see tangible progress on implementing these at scale nationally and globally,” said GI Hub CEO Marie Lam-Frendo, in an interview with Global Finance.
These topics formed a major part of the agenda and side conversations at the meetings in Morocco, continuing a global dialogue that has been gathering momentum across the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact (read our infrastructure takeaways of the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact), G20 Leaders’ Summit in September (read our infrastructure takeaways of the G20 New Delhi Leaders’ Summit), and the UN SDG Summit and New York Climate Week in September (read our infrastructure takeaways from NY Climate Week).
MDB reform was perhaps the most closely watched issue ahead of this week's meetings, and the G20 continued making progress on implementing its roadmap for reform. G20 Ministers and Governors were unanimous in their support for the final recommendations of the Independent Expert Group on how the MDBs must change to meet the global challenges of the 21st century. The World Bank shareholders also approved a reform agenda that will see the bank invest even more deliberately in climate action and other global development goals. In addition to capital adequacy framework (CAF) reforms, the bank intends to use its newly created private sector investor lab to generate ideas to crowd in private investment.
The G20 Finance Ministers also wrapped up the infrastructure agenda for this year, as the presidency passed from India to Brazil. The GI Hub’s InfraTracker was recognised by the FMCBG for its value as a year-on-year tracker of G20 countries’ investment in infrastructure. Building on our 2022 InfraTracker, the GI Hub expanded the tool with five years of budget data (2019–2023). This enables comparison and validation with other datasets and includes the collection of financial instruments used by governments. The updated data will be added to the public version of the InfraTracker in 2024. Check our G20 page for more key outcomes and documents of the Indian G20 Presidency year.
The incoming Brazilian G20 Presidency also discussed its priorities for 2024. The priorities focus on social outcomes and poverty reduction, a just climate transition, and ongoing institutional reform. The GI Hub looks forward to continuing our support of the G20’s infrastructure agenda and the Brazilian Presidency’s priorities.
On the road to COP28, there is reason to expect continued discussion of the issues that featured during the meetings this week, with a particular focus on driving investment toward addressing the climate crisis and supporting sustainable development in emerging economies.
For more background on the issues discussed at the meetings in Marrakech, click through for the article written by our Director of Engagement, Rory Linehan, for the Wilson Center’s Wahba Institute.
