The World Bank said the move, coinciding with a UN climate summit meeting of some 200 nations in Poland, represented a “significantly ramped up ambition” to tackle climate change, “sending an important signal to the wider global community to do the same.”

Minette Batters, a beef farmer from Wiltshire in southern England, is becoming the public face of farming in much of Britain.

The World Bank Group today announced a major new set of climate targets for 2021-2025, doubling its current 5-year investments to around $200 billion in support for countries to take ambitious climate action.

The World Bank cut its 2019 global growth forecast, citing a slowdown in trade growth to the weakest since the financial crisis a decade ago and a drop in global investment.

The World Bank says the world is facing a water quality crisis that is eliminating a third of potential economic growth in heavily polluted areas, while also threatening human and environmental wellbeing.

According to World Bank forecasts, the global economy will shrink by 5.2% this year.

The World Bank expects South Africa to grow by 4.6% in 2021, an upward revision from its 3% April forecast and also a significant improvement on the bank’s 2.6% growth projection published in October last year.

 The World Bank is seeking to vastly expand its lending capacity to address climate change and other global crises and will negotiate with shareholders ahead of April meetings on proposals that include a capital increase and new lending tools, according to an “evolution road map” seen by Reuters on Monday.

Globally, poverty and food insecurity are both on the rise after decades of development gains.

Environmental degradation, illegal wildlife trade, and human-wildlife conflict undermine development and pose significant risks to health, climate change adaptation, peace and security.

South Africa, Egypt, Benin Republic, Botswana, Namibia, Djibouti and Rwanda are better rated than Nigeria in the latest global Logistics Performance Index (LPI) released by the World Bank.

The annual meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) are due to take place in Marrakech, Morocco, in mid-October. The city and country are still reeling from a devastating earthquake in early September.

Domestic food price inflation remains high. Inflation higher than 5% is experienced in 61.9% of low-income countries (no change since the last update two weeks ago), 76.1% of lower-middle-income countries (3.9-percentage-point decrease), 50% of upper-middle-income countries (no change), and 57.4% of high-income countries (2.6-percentage-point decrease). The most-affected countries are in Africa, North America, Latin America, South Asia, Europe, and Central Asia. In real terms, food price inflation exceeded overall inflation in 74% of the 167 countries where data is available.