Australia’s contributions to the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA)
The International Development Association (IDA) is one of the World Bank’s five development financing agencies. IDA focuses on the world’s poorest countries and provides them with low or interest-free loans, or grants, to help them meet their development needs.
A total of 75 countries are currently eligble to receive IDA resources, including 10 Pacific Island countries. There are about 2,500 active projects in 152 countries, among those over 110 are in the Pacific (see the list of eligble countries here and a map of where IDA works here).
A substantial amount of IDA’s funding comes from contributions from developed country governments. Every three years, donors meet at IDA replenishment rounds and commit to providing funding. Due to COVID impact on IDA countries, the 20th replenishment was advanced by one year and will cover the period from July 2022 to June 2025.
IDA20 raised a total of US$93 billion, a 13% increase from the previous replenishment of US$82 billion. About US$23.5 billion of that came from government donors, US$11 billion was carried over from IDA19, and the rest was made up of capital market borrowing, repayments and the World Bank’s own contributions. Donor contributions stagnated from IDA19, which raised US$23.4 billion, and the number of government donors decreased from 56 countries in IDA19 to 52 in IDA20.
Australia is placed at 18th in the latest funding round, the same as IDA19 but down from 12th in IDA18. Australia’s total contribution to IDA20 was AU$488 million (US$368.7 million), falling from AU$499 million in IDA19. Yet as noted in this blog, Australian dollar had appreciated against the US dollar, so Australia’s contribution in USD actually increased from 346 million to 369 million.
Read more on Australia’s IDA commitments on the Devpolicy Blog.