Last week in Washington more than 10,000 delegates, finance ministers and central bankers gathered for the World Bank and IMF spring meetings. Their stated goal: accelerate global development, drive economic growth and lift billions out of poverty.
That mission remains vital. But too many development institutions have lost sight of what the world’s poorest people actually need. Flush with funding from taxpayers in wealthy nations, they increasingly prioritise elite Western concerns — gender, social issues and climate change — over the basics that matter most: better education and health care and reliable energy.
Nowhere is this disconnect clearer than in their growing climate fixation. The World Bank proudly reports that in its latest fiscal year, 48% of its funding went to so-called “climate finance”, up from 44% the year before and exceeding its own 45% target. To its credit, it emphasises that these projects can often do more than just deliver climate benefits, but that still means more than $39bn redirected toward climate-themed projects.
Across all multilateral development banks, spending on climate initiatives for low- and middle-income countries topped $85bn in 2024. The African Development Bank has gone further than most: climate finance now accounts for 49% of its portfolio, and for 2025 it announced it will aim for 100% of projects to incorporate climate considerations.
This is a profound misallocation. When Africans are asked directly what they worry about most, climate change barely registers. An Afrobarometer survey across 39 African countries, interviewing more than 50,000 people, found that respondents ranked unemployment, the economy, health, education, poverty, roads, electricity, hunger and corruption as their top concerns. Climate change ranked near the bottom — 31st out of 34 priorities.
When a child could die tonight from a preventable disease, no family cares about shaving a fraction of a degree off global temperatures a century from now. The well-heeled delegates in Washington — whose own children enjoy excellent health care, nutrition and education — can afford to obsess over temperature differences in a century. They may even convince themselves they are helping the poor by focusing on climate, but they are not. This is mission creep, and it is immoral.
Consider one flagship development initiative: the World Bank’s and African Development Bank’s plan to deliver electricity to 300-million Africans by 2030. It is an excellent goal, but the execution leaves much to be desired. Despite rhetoric about an “all of the above” energy policy, much of the “Mission 300” energy plan appears to be designed heavily around renewable energy, irrespective of whether this is what delivers the best result for Africa.
Plentiful, reliable and cheap energy is the foundation of prosperity. The rest of the world runs on fossil fuels, which still supply 81% of the world’s energy and over 60% of its electricity. The development banks should fund what works for Africans, not what satisfies rich world climate ideology.
Solar and wind can play a role where they make sense, but they cannot yet deliver the constant, affordable electricity that powers agriculture and drives industry. Gas and coal remain the practical bridge to prosperity for hundreds of millions.
The development banks should fund what works for Africans, not what satisfies rich world climate ideology.
Leaders of the development institutions would do well to remember that what counts is not empty rhetoric and trite slogans like ensuring “a liveable planet”, but concrete results. The good news is that far better options exist for spending than vanity climate projects.
Instead of pouring resources into low-return climate projects, the World Bank, IMF and other institutions should prioritise high-impact investments with proven returns.
In poor countries, 334-million primary school children — 79% of the total — fail to learn basic reading, writing and arithmetic. Teaching children at their own level using low-cost tablets and software costs just $31 per child per year yet triples learning gains. The result: about $2,000 in higher lifetime earnings per child. Every dollar invested delivers $65 in social benefits.
Another high-impact area: land tenure reform. Secure property rights let farmers invest in their land, access credit and boost productivity. Each dollar spent generates more than $18 in social benefits.
Some health investments also have vast impacts for relatively small costs. Fighting tuberculosis and malaria — two of the biggest killers in the developing world — can save more than 1-million lives with a few billion dollars. Each dollar invested returns more than $45 in benefits through saved lives and higher productivity.
These are not abstract ideas. They are practical, high-return policies that directly address what the poor themselves prioritise. Development institutions have ignored that all decisions are about tradeoffs, with a need to measure both costs and benefits of policies. They need to embrace the lessons their own economists can provide and meet their duty to focus on genuine progress – growing economies, eradicating poverty and improving lives today — rather than indulging in expensive distractions.
The world’s poorest deserve better than virtue signalling from afar. It is time for the World Bank, the IMF and the multilateral system to get back to basics: deliver real development, not climate politics.
• Dr Lomborg is president of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre and a visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He is the author of ‘False Alarm’ and ‘Best Things First’.
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