The 21st replenishment meeting of the International Development Association (IDA21) is scheduled to be held in Kathmandu on June 18.

Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal will deliver a keynote address at the opening session of the four-day meeting.

The session will be led by the co-chairs of the IDA21 replenishment—World Bank Senior Managing Director Axel van Trotsenburg and Sheku Sambadeen Sesay, the IDA21 Independent Co-Chair.

Faris Hadad-Zervos, the World Bank country director for Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, said the major event, to be held in Kathmandu for the first time, will bring more than 200 IDA delegates representing both donors and recipients.

IDA is the part of the World Bank that invests in the future of people and the planet, with projects across 75 countries.

Established in 1960, IDA aims to reduce poverty by providing grants and zero- to low-interest loans for programmes that boost economic growth, reduce inequalities, and improve people’s living conditions.

Replenishing IDA’s resources will be a key topic of the meeting, which comes at the midpoint of a funding cycle concluding in December 2024—when donors commit to contributions for July 2025 to June 2028.

The June 18 session kicks off four days of closed-door meetings to discuss IDA21’s proposed focus areas, assess the financing needs of countries supported by IDA, and consider financing scenarios.

The overarching theme for IDA21 is ‘ending poverty on a livable planet: delivering impact with urgency and ambition’.

To fulfil this, the IDA21 policy package will have five focus areas: people, planet, prosperity, infrastructure and digitalisation, supported by four lenses of gender, jobs, fragility, conflict and violence, and private investments. The current replenishment (IDA20) ends on June 30, 2025.

The target, or a narrow range of scenarios, for the pledging session, is typically agreed upon at the fourth replenishment meeting in October. IDA21 resources will be available for commitments for a three-year period starting July 1, 2025, through June 30, 2028.

IDA will continue to provide special support for countries affected by fragility, conflict, and violence and utilise windows to provide additional resources specific to key thematic priorities, such as crisis response, addressing regional challenges, and providing blended finance for private sector investments in IDA countries, among others.

“IDA is scaling up its market share significantly, also enabling co-financing and coordinating donor resources to maximise impact. IDA is a transparent, accountable, and cost-effective platform that delivers results, making it a prime investment for global development finance. So you can get a sense of how important this meeting is,” said Hadad-Zervos.

He said that Nepal's development story is original. “It is one of economic transformation in the face of various challenges. It faced almost every challenge that a country could face—conflict, earthquakes, Covid, climate crisis, floods, and many others.”

“This confluence has put Nepal's development gains at risk. Yet Nepal is a very resilient country. And despite these challenges, it has achieved significant development progress,” he said.

Shree Krishna Nepal, joint-secretary at the finance ministry, said that the World Bank Group’s first economic mission to Nepal was in 1963 to assess the country's developing prospects and challenges. The group approved its first credit in 1969 for a telecommunications project that continues to be transformative today.

Since then, IDA has provided Nepal with $6 billion in credits and grants. Currently, the World Bank is supporting 24 projects worth $2.3 billion.

The World Bank said IDA is also helping transform the lives of millions of Nepalis through investments in education, health, jobs and skills, connectivity and infrastructure, social protection, food security, and others.

A robust IDA 21 replenishment will ensure that IDA countries continue to benefit from it and that IDA continues its decades-long track record of lifting millions of people out of poverty, providing quality education for children, ensuring access to health services, and creating jobs so that people in low-income countries can become self-sustainable and living, according to the multilateral funding agency.