The World Bank as a cash-transfer algorithm

The Bank should align its priorities with the growing trend in poor countries to adopt cash transfers and a universal basic income.

Since its founding, the World Bank has evolved to perform three main functions: provide global public goods, generate valuable data and independent analysis, and transfer mostly concessional resources to poorer countries. Having recently undermined its credibility with regard to the first two objectives, the Bank should now focus on the third.
 
Start with global public goods. The Covid-19 pandemic presented the World Bank with an ideal opportunity to burnish its credentials. But the Bank’s performance — standing on the sidelines as the Covid-19 Vaccine Global Access (COVAX) facility unravelled and failing to release money it had pledged for vaccine