World Bank snub dashes hopes of climate consensus

Hopes of using Davos to forge a new international consensus to tackle poverty and the climate crisis have been thwarted by the decision of the World Bank president, David Malpass, to boycott the event.

To the surprise of the other multilateral institutions, Malpass turned down his invitation to attend despite being in Europe this week for the UK government's Africa investment summit in London.

In the past, World Bank presidents have played a prominent role at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, taking the opportunity to make the case for concerted action to tackle global poverty.

The heads of other major international organisations, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the UN, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization and the International Labour Organisation, attended the Davos event.

One source said Malpass's decision not to attend the World Economic Forum reflected the Bank's go-it-alone approach under his presidency. "He has effectively declared UDI [unilateral declaration of independence]," the source said. "We saw it at last year's G7 summit in France. President [Emmanuel] Macron wanted a collective statement from the international organisations but Malpass vetoed it. He wouldn't have the word multilateralism in the statement."

A spokesman for the World Economic Forum said Malpass, who was Donald Trump's nominee to head the World Bank, had been invited. The next two most senior officials at the Washington-based institution - Axel van Trotsenburg, the bank's managing director, and Philippe Le Houérou, the head of the bank's private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation - are also notable absentees from Davos.

By a tradition that stretches back to the 1940s, the US chooses the head of the bank while the European nations pick the managing director of the IMF.

Since taking over less than a year ago, Malpass's prioritisation of programmes for individual countries has led to suspicions in other international bodies that the bank is in effect being run from the White House.