World Bank Group
Group making loans to developing countries
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| May 2024 | The Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage held its first board meeting in Abu Dhabi, discussing critical issues like fund access, financial instruments, and establishing the fund as a World Bank-hosted financial intermediary fund. |
| 2023 | Ajay Banga was appointed as the new World Bank president, supported by US President Joe Biden partly due to his stance on climate action, succeeding David Malpass who had faced criticism for challenging climate science. |
| 2023 | Ajay Banga became the new president, known for supporting climate action and succeeding David Malpass. |
| September 2023 | Revelations emerged that the World Bank had provided approximately $3.7 billion in trade finance to fossil fuel projects in 2022, contradicting its green pledges. |
| August 9 2023 | The World Bank suspended new loans to Uganda in response to the country's anti-homosexuality law, joining the United States in imposing sanctions against Uganda. |
| June 2 2023 | Ajay Banga began his term as World Bank president, becoming the first Indian American to lead the bank. |
| May 2023 | Uganda enacted an anti-homosexuality act that was later deemed to contradict the World Bank's core human rights values. |
| September 2022 | Indermit Gill takes over as Chief Economist, serving from September 2022 to present. |
| September 2022 | Established the global Pandemic Fund, a collaborative initiative aimed at funding pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response for low- and middle-income countries. |
| June 2022 | World Bank reported $10.1 billion allocated to supply vaccines to 78 countries. |
| 2021 | The World Bank Group provided approximately $98.83 billion in loans and assistance to developing and transition countries during the fiscal year. |
| 2021 | The World Bank offered support to Kazakhstan in its mission for decarbonization and achieving carbon neutrality. |
| 2021 | An independent inquiry by WilmerHale found that World Bank leaders, including Kristalina Georgieva and Jim Yong Kim, pressured staff to alter data to inflate rankings for China, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, and the UAE. |
| 2020 | The World Bank employed 12,300 full-time staff and operated in 145 countries worldwide. |
| 2020 | The World Bank committed USD 77.1 billion in total funding, operating across 145 countries and supporting projects ranging from education and healthcare to infrastructure and environmental protection. |
| 2020 | Committed USD 77.1 billion in total financial support, operated in 145 countries, and maintained a staff of 12,300 full-time employees. |
| September 2020 | World Bank announced a $12 billion plan to supply vaccines to low and middle-income countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. |
| August 2020 | U.S. lawmakers raised concerns and questioned the continued disbursement of the Xinjiang loan previously highlighted in 2019. |
| June 2020 | Carmen Reinhart becomes Chief Economist, serving until June 2022. |
| March 2020 | Aart Kraay serves as Acting Chief Economist from March to June 2020. |
| January 2020 | COVID-19 pandemic met all requirements for the Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility (PEF) funding, though money was prevented from being released due to a 12-week delay clause. |
| 2019 | The Congressional-Executive Commission on China questioned the World Bank about a loan in Xinjiang, China, used to purchase high-end security and surveillance equipment, prompting an internal bank investigation. |
| November 2019 | EU finance ministers and civil sector groups like Extinction Rebellion called for an end to World Bank funding of fossil fuels. |
| October 7 2019 | Anshula Kant appointed as World Bank Group chief financial officer and managing director, succeeding the previous office holder. |
| April 9 2019 | David Malpass became president of the World Bank, replacing Kristalina Georgieva who served as interim president. |
| February 2019 | David Malpass is appointed by President Trump as the president of the World Bank Group. |
| February 1 2019 | Jim Yong Kim resigned from his position as World Bank president. |
| February 1 2019 | Kristalina Georgieva becomes the first woman to serve as interim World Bank Group president, representing the first president from the European Union, former Eastern Bloc, and Bulgaria. |
| November 2018 | Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg becomes Chief Economist, serving until February 2020. |
| October 1 2018 | The World Bank began implementing its new Environmental and Social Framework, marking a significant update to its operational guidelines and safeguard policies. |
| July 2018 | Robert Malpass, son of David Malpass, is hired as an analyst at the International Finance Corporation, a World Bank Group branch. |
| April 2018 | US Treasury backs a $13 billion capital infusion for the World Bank, with David Malpass as the influential undersecretrary. |
| January 2018 | Shanta Devarajan becomes Acting Chief Economist, serving until November 2018. |
| 2017 | Jim Yong Kim was reelected to a second five-year term as World Bank president. |
| December 2017 | Jim Yong Kim announced that the World Bank would no longer finance fossil fuel development. |
| August 2016 | Paul Romer takes over as Chief Economist, serving until January 2018. |
| 2015 | World Bank officials participated in negotiations for Sustainable Development Goal 10 (SDG 10), which aims to reduce inequalities within and among countries. The bank advocated for adopting its own preferred benchmarks to ensure other organizations would evaluate success based on the bank's definition of inequality. |
| 2013 | Bertrand Badré serves as World Bank CFO and receives a controversial $94,000 bonus, which he later renounces, amid staff cuts and austerity measures. |
| 2013 | The World Bank adopted the 'Shared Prosperity' concept as one of its Twin Goals, focusing on reducing the share of people in extreme poverty to 3 percent of the global population by 2030. This goal defined Shared Prosperity as increasing the income of the bottom 40 percent of the population in each country, effectively broadening the bank's mandate to address inequality. |
| 2012 | World Bank President Jim Yong Kim publicly emphasized the critical need to avoid a 4-degree warmer world and hold global warming below 2 degrees, highlighting climate change as a major developmental challenge. |
| 2012 | The World Bank doubled its climate change adaptation aid from $2.3 billion to $4.6 billion, signaling increased commitment to addressing global climate challenges. |
| 2012 | The Economist criticized the World Bank's leadership tradition of having an American head the organization. |
| 2012 | The World Bank received the SPARC Innovator award for making its publications available as open access under a Creative Commons Attribution License, promoting open knowledge and data sharing. |
| 2012 | World Bank initiated a review of its environmental and social safeguards during its annual meeting in Tokyo, which was positively received by civil society organizations. |
| October 2012 | Kaushik Basu becomes Chief Economist, serving until July 2016. |
| June 2012 | Martin Ravallion serves as Chief Economist from June to October 2012. |
| April 27 2012 | Jim Yong Kim was elected as president of the World Bank. |
| March 23 2012 | U.S. President Barack Obama announced Jim Yong Kim as the nominee for World Bank president. |
| 2011 | Caroline Heider becomes Director-General of Evaluation, succeeding Vinod Thomas |
| 2010 | World Bank revised voting powers to increase the voice of developing countries, with significant gains for countries like China, South Korea, Turkey, Mexico, Singapore, Greece, Czech Republic, Hungary, Brazil, India, and Spain. Most developed countries saw a reduction in voting power. |
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