Global anti-poverty organisation The ONE Campaign is urging G20 finance ministers to use their meeting in Gandhinagar, India, next week to adopt the recommendations in a report written by an expert group looking at the potential reform of global financial institutions.

The report, commissioned by the G20 recommends:

• Adopting a triple mandate of eliminating extreme poverty, boosting shared prosperity, and contributing to global public goods
• Tripling sustainable lending levels by 2030
• Creating a third funding mechanism which would permit flexible and innovative arrangements for purposefully engaging with investors willing to support elements of the MDB agenda.

The report, which reflects calls from ONE and other NGOs, as well as finance ministers from across Africa, also recognizes the much greater role that global financial institutions have to play helping vulnerable countries to respond to the threat of climate change and build greener and more sustainable economies. The authors also emphasise the importance of both leveraging the MDBs’ existing capital much more effectively and the need for future capital increases to scale the banks’ capacity to the size needed.

Dr David McNair, Executive Director of Policy at The ONE Campaign, said: “The advice from the experts is now clear and unmistakable – if we are going to steer a path through today’s crises and give people the tools they need to rise to the long term challenges facing the world then we need to see a radical upgrade of the global financial system, backed up by increased capital commitments that enable institutions to act with sufficient speed and scale.

“Institutions such as the World Bank could be supercharging these efforts – but only if they remove barriers to affordable finance, are able to invest at a scale that reflects the colossal challenges facing people around the world and focus this investment where it will have the biggest impact.  

“These recommendations would help to unlock the enormous potential of people in Africa and across vulnerable countries, who could be at the vanguard of efforts to tackle climate change and extreme poverty. There is no longer any excuse not to act. We cannot continue to allow an outdated financial system to rob people of the opportunities to shape their own future.”