The World Bank Group Office in Geneva spearheads the institution’s interactions with local partners, promoting a two-way dialogue and raising awareness of the WBG’s mission and activities. The office manages the relations with: the United Nations agencies and other International Organizations headquartered in Geneva; the World Trade Organization and other Geneva-based trade organizations; the Government of Switzerland and other key Swiss stakeholders. 

As a reflection of the importance of Geneva-based partners, the office houses staff from various World Bank Global Practices, namely Health Nutrition and Population; Macroeconomics, Trade and Investment; and Urban, Disaster Risk Management, Resilience and Land. Other priority areas of engagement include humanitarian-development nexus, refugees and host communities, migration, labor and social protection, digital development and sustainable finance.

The Geneva office also supports outreach activities, often in collaboration with Swiss partners, such as organizing and supporting conferences, seminars, and other events on development-related topics. The office serves as an entry point for local partners wishing to contact World Bank staff across the world or access the plethora of information the Bank publishes, and it responds to media queries. It also seeks to increase opportunities for collaboration between Switzerland and the World Bank Group through co-financing, trust funds, and joint analytical work in sectors and regions of mutual interest.

The broad functions of the World Bank Group (WBG) Geneva office is as follows:

• Representing the WBG with respect to outreach and advocacy;
• Leading role in the WBG humanitarian-development-peace nexus, offering technical expertise housed within the External and Corporate Relations (ECR) Geneva team; and
• Facilitate WBG relations with key actors and processes in the Geneva international community.

The World Bank Group is committed to helping governments achieve universal health coverage (UHC) by 2030, which has the potential to transform the health and well-being of individuals and societies. The vision of UHC is that all people can obtain the quality health services they need without suffering financial hardship. UHC also allows countries to make the most of their strongest asset: human capital. 

the The Health, Nutrition & Population (HNP) Global Practice strengthen the Bank’s institutional relationship with the health international organizations based in Geneva – the World Health Organization (WHO), Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), and the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM).