Last year’s Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) in Sevilla produced an ambitious agenda to reform the international financial architecture and mobilize more and better development finance.

Many of its commitments called for action by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF). With their Annual Meetings in Bangkok approaching, it’s time to take stock of progress. Have the two Bretton Woods Institutions delivered more development finance, strengthened governance and expanded the role of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), the international reserve asset that the IMF can create? 

Development finance: mobilizing private capital at the expense of public lending  

The two institutions remain central providers of development finance: the World Bank Group provides development and investment lending while the IMF provides emergency financing during crises. Their importance has grown in recent years as bilateral aid budgets have been slashed and economic, climate and geopolitical shocks have become more frequent and severe.

The FfD4’s Compromiso de Sevilla included several commitments that aimed to expand the development finance capacity of multilateral institutions. These included tripling the World Bank’s (as well as other multilateral development banks) lending capacity, increasing local currency lending and strengthening instruments for private capital mobilization. The agreement also stated that borrowing limits across all layers of the global financial safety net should be adjusted – a commitment particularly relevant to the IMF. 

While the World Bank reported a record year of mobilizing private capital in fiscal year 2026, this success has come at the cost of a greater focus on wealthier countries and profitable sectors. This has raised concerns among those who believe that a development bank should serve the countries and people furthest behind.

The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) – the World Bank Group’s main lending arm for public sector borrowers – presents a less encouraging picture: although net commitments increased in the most recent fiscal year, gross disbursements declined. Net disbursements, measured as actual flows of IBRD funds minus repayment of existing loans, fell sharply to 9.5 billion US dollars (US$) – roughly one-third below the US$14.8bn recorded in fiscal year 2025. Net disbursements from the International Development Association (IDA) – the World Bank Group’s lending arm for low- and lower-middle-income countries – also fell from US$24.3bn to US$20.3bn over the same period.

The picture at the IMF is no better: it has not undertaken any major reforms of its lending instruments since the Sevilla FfD4 conference.

SDR reform at the IMF has stalled

SDRs remain an important source of liquidity for many countries. Although the SDR interest rate has increased significantly since the last major allocation in 2021, SDRs can still provide additional liquidity when needed, often on more favourable terms than financial markets or other borrowing instruments. Developing countries, academics and civil society organizations (CSOs) therefore continue to call for broader and more targeted use of SDRs.

The Compromiso de Sevilla included several commitments on SDR reform. These called for a review of the role of SDRs in the international monetary system, the development of a new SDR playbook and new allocations to supplement existing reserve assets. The agreement also called on IMF members to rechannel half of their SDR allocations to developing countries and support the SDR rechannelling mechanisms developed by the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB).

The lack of progress here is disappointing. Momentum behind rechannelling existing SDR allocations appears to have stalled: Since Sevilla, no country with the capacity to do so has announced a significant new rechannelling commitment. The AfDB and IADB mechanisms have also yet to be used because too few countries have committed to contribute. 

The IMF reviewed the case for new SDR allocations. But despite the mounting global economic challenges, it stopped short of recommending new allocations, mainly because IMF staff and management did not expect enough member countries to support it. The IMF has also done little to develop concrete proposals for broader SDR reform and also not produced the SDR playbook called for in the Compromiso de Sevilla, which as to provide operational guidance on using SDRs during crises and shocks.

Although CSOs have attempted to fill this gap - Latindadd and the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) produced an “SDR playbook for the IMF”which, among other things, recommended a preapproved SDR mechanism to expedite future allocations. But a civil society initiative cannot replace IMF action. 

Next month’s Annual Meetings offer IMF member states to the chance to revive the SDR reform agenda before before the next major global shock creates an urgent need for additional liquidity.

Governance reform has reached an impasse

Developing countries have long criticised governance at the IMF and World Bank for leaving them underrepresented. In the lead-up to the Sevilla FfD4 conference, they repeatedly pressed for reform at the UN, and the BRICS Summit in September reiterated these demands in its New Delhi Declaration. 

Unlike the UN General Assembly, where every country has one vote, voting power at the IMF and World Bank depends largely on countries’ quotas and shareholdings, giving wealthier countries greater influence. 

The Compromiso de Sevilla then invited IMF Governors to increase basic votes and called on the World Bank to conduct a shareholding review in 2025 “to achieve an equitable balance of voting power, and promptly implement the review outcomes”. It also called for developing countries to have a stronger voice through larger executive boards and additional chairs for underrepresented regions.

At the 2026 IMF Spring Meetings, the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC) endorsed the Diriya Guiding Principles on quota and governance reform, but they do not explicitly call for an increase in basic votes. So far, the IMF Executive Board has not decided how to reform the quota formula. Neither has the IMF nor World Bank added chairs to its Executive Board since the Sevilla Commitment was adopted. And while the World Bank’s shareholding review has acknowledged misalignments between countries’ shareholding and their relative weight in the global economy, the official report concludes that there was not sufficient political support among shareholders to address them by a new share allocation or an increase in basic votes. 

Overall, progress on the Sevilla Commitments remains disappointing. Many remain largely unfulfilled, with little tangible progress on governance or SDR system reform. 

The World Bank has begun reforming its lending practices, but its growing focus on mobilizing private capital appears to be reducing public sector lending to the countries and communities that need it most. Meanwhile, growing economic uncertainty raises questions about whether the IMF’s lending tools can respond effectively to the next crisis.

The Annual Meetings in Bangkok offer a key moment to bring IMF and World Bank reform processes up to speed and translate commitments into concrete action. This opportunity should not be wasted.