Starting Monday, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund are holding their annual meetings — under the shadow of a scandal around the bank’s Doing Business publication, which has embroiled IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva and threatens the credibility of both institutions.
Only about 4% of people on the African continent are fully vaccinated, a gap that has come to epitomize the major disparity between higher- and lower-income countries. Amanda Glassman, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, said part of the problem stems from the lack of global leadership on the vaccine rollout.
“Who is leading?” she asked, pointing out that multiple bodies — from the World Health Organization to donor countries — have roles but that no one has taken the helm.
The World Bank is charged with the operations side of the vaccine rollout, and Glassman said this has appeared to improve from where it was several months ago, when money to support the effort was moving out the door at a much slower pace.
