The World Bank and International Monetary Fund Spring Meetings

The World Bank and International Monetary Fund Spring Meetings wrapped up this weekend after days of high-level panels, crowded elevators, closed-door meetings and corridor dealmaking. The events marked an inflection point for the world’s largest development bank, which has moved forward from a tumultuous internal reorganization but now faces the uncertainty of an international political arena in flux. The values and priorities guiding multilateral cooperation are open for negotiation in a way not seen for the past 70 years. From the vantage point of the World Bank’s atrium, the spring meetings can feel like an open house, with finance ministers, celebrities, politicians and reporters shuttling from building to building and session to session. But over the course of the week, common themes tend to stand out from the crowd, and this year one of them was the role of the World Bank and its peer institutions in managing the various forms of risk that characterize — and challenge — global development today.