Asset Management

The World Bank Treasury is committed to aligning investment procedures and practices with the World Bank’s overall mission and goals in sustainable development to the extent possible while continuing to manage portfolios in accordance with the asset management team's fiduciary and principal mandates.

SRI and implementing relevant approaches are a process, not an event. The availability of ESG data, the development of appropriate technology to use this data, and the evolution of stakeholder views and preferences mean there will likely be ongoing progression in the Responsible Investment agenda and architecture.

The World Bank Treasury aims to respond to member needs and expectations about ESG-oriented investment approaches insofar as those needs and expectations align with applicable investment authorizations and guidelines. Furthermore, Treasury aims to support members in understanding and selecting appropriate SRI approaches and investment approaches, considering the members’ liquidity profile as well as all relevant Responsible Investment and financial considerations.

The World Bank Treasury's approach to SRI for investment management will be ESG Integration, which will apply to all RAMP members' portfolios. ESG Integration is an extension of traditional financial analysis to consider ESG issues in investments explicitly, and as such, is an additional tool intended to improve financial outcomes for portfolios.

The World Bank Treasury also has experience of implementing dedicated thematic fixed-income strategies that seek to address sustainable investment needs beyond ESG integration. In implementing these strategies, the World Bank Treasury has invested in issuers or projects with the explicit intent to generate specific, measurable and positive social and/or environmental outcomes, alongside a financial return. These strategies enable dedicated and detailed impact reporting, providing a high level of transparency through both quantitative and qualitative impact metrics and project stories derived from issuer impact reports and direct engagement.

Beyond serving RAMP members, the World Bank Treasury has extensive experience in managing and investing development partner financial resources. It has mobilized and managed development partner contributions since 1960 when the International Development Association (IDA) was created to support the poorest countries through interest free and long maturity loans. Since the 1980s, development partners have also provided bilateral aid resources and other contributions through trust funds managed by the World Bank, and over the past decade, have engaged the World Bank as trustee for Financial Intermediary Funds (FIFs). In this function, the World Bank takes on different financial management and advisory roles, while project implementation and oversight in developing countries is carried out by donor agencies or other entities.

All trust funds and FIFs assets administered by the World Bank are maintained in a commingled investment portfolio (the “Pool”). To accommodate varying investment horizons and risk tolerances of individual trust funds, the Pool comprises of sub-portfolios, called Model Portfolios, in which trust funds and FIFs liquid assets can be invested.

Learn more about the World Bank Asset Management and Advisory, which serves development partners, external clients and RAMP members.