World Bank ready to respond ‘at scale’ to Middle East war fallout

2026-03-26 - 23:00

The World Bank said it would use a broad range of tools to help countries, including a ‘crisis response toolkit, and pre-arranged financing facilities’. (Reuters pic) WASHINGTON: The World Bank on Thursday said it was prepared to provide immediate financial assistance to countries in emerging markets dealing with the economic fallout of the conflict in the Middle East. “We are ready to respond at scale — combining immediate financial relief with policy expertise and private sector support for the recovery of jobs and growth,” the World Bank Group said in its first statement on the crisis. The multilateral donor and development agency said a number of its clients in affected countries had reached out as the crisis has begun to impact commodity prices and logistics. The US-Israel war on Iran, launched on Feb 28, has plunged the region into conflict, with Iranian retaliatory strikes hitting US allies in the Gulf and elsewhere. Oil prices have skyrocketed as Iran has virtually blockaded the key Strait of Hormuz, through which nearly a fifth of global energy supplies pass. The halt in shipping has also snarled supply chains for several key commodities, including fertilizer, which could have knock-on effects on food security. The World Bank said it would use a broad range of tools to help countries, including a “crisis response toolkit, and pre-arranged financing facilities.” “Clearly, this is an evolving situation and we cannot predict the full range of impacts,” the statement said. “As everyone has said, the longer this lasts, and the more damage there is to critical infrastructure, the more challenging this will be for our clients.” On Thursday, the price of Brent crude was up more than 50% since the start of the war. Oil supply shocks have knock-on inflationary effects and also can also cool economic output by putting the brakes on production. Most energy supplies from the Gulf are bound for Asian countries, which account for a large number of the World Bank’s clients.