The United Nations General Assembly last month in New York provided the opportunity for an informal meeting of Members of the European Parliament and World Bank Management.

Fionna Douglas, Acting Vice President of External and Corporate Relations joined the European Parliament Delegation to the UN Summit for the adoption of the post-2015 development agenda at the EU Mission. The delegation included EP Development Committee Chair Linda McAvan (UK), EP Rapporteur on the SDGs Davor Stier (Croatia), and EP Rapporteur on Private Sector and Development Nirj Deva (UK).

The meeting was an opportunity to discuss the Bank’s role in the operationalization and implementation of the new Sustainable Development Goals and for MEPs to lay out their priorities in this agenda. The Bank, organized into global practices and cross-cutting solution areas that are perfectly aligned with the SDGs, will play a critical role in helping countries identify priorities and develop multi-sector solutions. MEPs expressed interest in, among other things, the Bank’s role in climate finance, gender, private sector development, and job creation.

They also identified the important the role the World Bank Group can play in boosting domestic resources by supporting country-level improvements to governance—in particular curbing illicit financial flows and improving tax collection. Governance, in fact, is the Bank’s largest global practice—bringing together staff in more than 100 countries to provide lending, fiduciary, knowledge, advisory and technical assistance services. There is active lending in more than 80 projects worth $4 billion (not counting advisory, TA and governance components in other projects). More than 20% of the Bank’s active portfolio has governance-related themes.