A banker's vision for a livable planet

Ajay Banga, the 14th President of the World Bank, recently held court in Stanford’s Hoover Institution. The former MasterCard CEO, who in 2021 became an advisor to General Atlantic's climate-focused fund, painted a picture of a world at a crossroads—grappling with climate change, refugee crises, and the promise (and perils) of AI.

Banga took the reins at the World Bank last year. He said. "We are a Knowledge Bank," repositioning the Bank from being just a “money bank” to a venerable institution focused on solving many problems.

On climate, Banga was cautiously upbeat. He pointed to the Paris Agreement as a turning point, not just for governments but also for public awareness. "This wasn't even a topic 5-8 years ago," he noted. The rapid progress in renewable energy particularly caught his eye. "It now takes a day to install a Gigawatt of solar. It used to take 100 days a few years ago," Banga said.

But it's not all sunshine. Banga highlighted the issue of fairness in climate policy. Developing countries, he explained, often feel they're being asked to forgo the very fossil fuels that powered Western growth. Similarly, there are issues on carbon credits. "These are greenwashed, no certification, no registry," all of which needs to be fixed.

Banga's solution is to ‘think big, but act small’. "Let us work on electricity but also construction, carbon capture, and more," he said. "Think of bite-sized chunks you can make a difference to."

When Kat Hu, a student at Stanford Graduate School of Business, asked about the World Bank's role in AI governance, Banga admitted they're still getting started. However, he pointed out an "AI divide" between developed and emerging markets. "People think AI is the answer to their future in emerging markets," he said, "but most don't have the four things required for AI: compute, electricity, lots of data, and people who know how to manage that data."

Saleh Dadkhahipour, student at Stanford GSB, said: “Drawing from his experience in Agriculture in Iran, further echoes the importance of cooperatives in bringing discipline to countries' climate policies.”

Throughout the talk, Banga kept circling back to a central theme: the need for the World Bank to focus on outcomes, not just inputs. "I want to get to outcome," he insisted. "Not how many girls went to school but how many girls ended up with a better life years down the line."

Under Banga's leadership, the World Bank is aiming to be more than just a source of funds. It wants to be a catalyst for real, measurable change. Whether it can pull off this transformation remains to be seen. But one thing is definitive: with Ajay Banga at the helm, it won't be business as usual at the World Bank.