World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim is currently on a three-day visit to India. He held a meeting with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Monday to discuss the implementation modalities of poverty alleviation projects in the state.
Yong Kim is also slated to meet Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, and Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley.
India has often voiced concern over the depleting financial resources of the World Bank and the monopoly by certain countries in terms of allocating resources. This visit by Yong Kim gains special importance given that the BRICS countries — including India — recently created a New Development Bank (NDB) which many feel aims to rival the World Bank.
Each of the five members — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — will contribute $10 billion to create a capital base of $50 billion for NDB. While the bank will be headquartered in Shanghai, India will name the first president of the bank for a tenure of six years.
At present, India is home to the largest operations of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the International Development Association (IDA) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC).
World Bank Group assistance to India between July 2013 and June 2014 amounted to USD 6.4 billion. This included USD 2 billion from IBRD, USD 3.1 billion from IDA, and USD 100 million from the Clean Technology Fund that the World Bank Group administers. During that period, the World Bank Group’s private sector arm, IFC, committed USD 1.2 billion in India.