"The Covid-19 pandemic has triggered health, economic and social crises of unprecedented proportions that have the potential to seriously undermine the (already slow) progress made by developing countries towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
The World Bank's (WB) own figures suggest that by 2021 an additional 110 to 150 million people will have fallen into extreme poverty, living on less than US$ 1.90 per day. The impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic have resulted in calls for ambitious responses, both in terms of scale and policy, under the broad headline of “building back better”. This briefing paper analyses the response of the World Bank Group (WBG) to the Covid-19 pandemic and reveals a persistent prioritisation of private over public interests, both in the immediate pandemic response and beyond. In fact, the WBG appears to have seized the current crisis as an opportunity to intensify its Maximising Finance for Development (MFD) approach."

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