Nearly 20,000 people have gathered in Bangkok for the annual meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), amid mounting economic pressures on the world's poorest countries and growing uncertainty over how to finance their development.
The mood on the ground has been far from buoyant. The US war in the Middle East - and subsequent economic shock from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz - continues to have a disproportionately large economic impact on the world’s poorest nations. This year’s “super” El Nino climate event is also set to devastate harvests across much of the Global South, and plunge tens of millions into hunger.
