OUTGOING US President Joe Biden will announce a “historic” pledge for a World Bank fund that helps the world’s poorest countries, the White House said Monday, before Donald Trump takes office with a new cost-cutting agenda.
Biden will unveil the money for the International Development Association as he attends the G20 summit currently underway in Rio de Janeiro, his last time at the gathering of world leaders.
“President Biden will announce a historic US pledge during the Rio summit and rally other leaders to step up their contributions,” US Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer told reporters.
He added that Biden would be “highlighting the need for an ambitious replenishment” of the fund.
The International Development Association is the concessional lending arm of the World Bank and is used for some of the poorest countries in the globe, including for projects focused on climate.
The US official did not give a figure for the pledge.
During a six-day tour of South America, Biden has been trying to shore up his international legacy ahead of President-elect Trump’s return to the White House on January 20.
On Sunday he visited the Amazon rainforest in Brazil to promote his record on climate change, saying that the United States had hit its target of increasing bilateral climate financing to $11 billion a year.
Trump has pledged to take a wrecking ball to many of Biden’s policies and has appointed tech tycoon Elon Musk as head of a commission to target what he calls federal government waste.
