Bangkok Climate Action Week

To: Finance Ministers, Central Bank Governors, Executive Directors, and Leadership of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund

A Call for a New Economic Paradigm in Southeast Asia

Welcome to Bangkok. You meet at a moment of profound choice and possibility for Southeast Asia and the world. We can persist with an extractive economic paradigm and surrender to the mounting chaos and pain of a global unraveling already in motion; or we can embrace a great turning that will set us on a path to recovery, resilience, and shared prosperity for generations to come. There is only one moral choice, and it is also the economic one, as we know business as usual will entail unfathomable costs. We choose an economy that nourishes and sustains people and the planet over one that depletes them.

Over the past week, thousands of people gathered here for Bangkok Climate Action Week, the region’s largest gathering of its kind, to explore and chart concrete pathways to a better economic future. Across more than 330 events involving over 200 organizations from across Southeast Asia, a clear signal emerges: we are already in the turning. The challenge is no longer whether viable alternative development models exist, but how to create the conditions that allow them to thrive. We welcome your partnership in this.

We share your aspiration to deliver shared prosperity on a liveable planet. Fulfilling this vision demands more than incremental adjustments to prevailing systems; it requires a rapid evolution in our economic logic and decision-making. This transformation must be grounded in climate and ecological justice, recognizing the intrinsic value of nature, the interdependence of all life, and the reality of ecological limits.

We invite you to envision a network of economies where all people may thrive with reliable access to clean energy, healthy soil, clean water, secure housing, and nutritious food, delivered in symbiosis with Earth systems. We see a future economy made structurally resilient by centering human care - unlocking the agency of women and youth - and safeguarding our rich natural heritage as the bedrock of long-term security.

We must confront this historic juncture with a candid and compassionate reckoning of the harm caused by our dominant economic model. The interconnected crises of inequality, climate breakdown, biodiversity loss, and systemic pollution share a common root: a global financial system that prioritizes private wealth accumulation for a select few over public goods and environmental commons. These failures bring us to the brink of irreversible ecological and social tipping points. They leave businesses, public assets and sovereign investment portfolios dangerously exposed to shocks and the ticking timebomb of stranded assets.

The good news is that we are already writing new scripts for our economic future with what we have today. Our cultural heritage preserves time-tested, community-led practices like integrated rice-fish systems, which are being revitalized across Southeast Asia to withstand climate and market shocks. Furthermore, Southeast Asia holds over a quarter of the global biological treasury. Protecting and regenerating our natural ecosystems is an economic prerequisite that secures foundational stability and resilient livelihoods.

Across the region, bioeconomy initiatives and programs show that forests, agroforestry systems, coastal resources, and biodiversity are already supporting economic development, job creation, climate resilience, and shared prosperity. More than isolated pilots, we see an emerging pattern and hard evidence of wellbeing-oriented bioeconomies already working across the region.

Our core premise is straightforward: our next economic leap will not come from extracting more from nature and people, but from investing in them, enhancing their capacity to regenerate and deliver more equitably shared value. We welcome your partnership in this and put to you the following 10 pillars for action and collaboration:

Measure What Matters
Embed the UN’s Beyond GDP metrics into credit ratings, loan assessments, and policy design, expanding on the World Bank’s natural capital accounting.
Align financing with internationally agreed climate and biodiversity goals
Align financing with the Paris Agreement and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. End harmful fossil fuel and agricultural subsidies and ensure carbon credits do not substitute for direct emissions reductions.
Finance just energy and food transitions
Prioritize investment in grids as the backbone of the transition and support small-scale distributed clean energy owned by communities. Shift from harmful industrial agriculture towards regenerative food systems that support food sovereignty and local food cultures, sustain farmer livelihoods, healthy ecosystems, equitable access to nutritious food, and balanced diets.
Pivot from post-disaster reconstruction to pre-disaster prevention
With climate impacts more predictable than ever, the World Bank can shift from reactive disaster response and management to proactively embedding protection into the core of its lending. Likewise, the IMF can use this data to integrate climate risks and preventive planthe ning into IMF macroeconomic surveillance.
Address debt burdens and protect public spending
Support debt reduction and restructuring to increase fiscal space. Avoid conditions that cut social and environmental spending or pressure countries to sell natural resources. Apply polluter-pays principle. Debt-for-nature swaps must not transfer control over natural resources to creditors.
Facilitate direct access to nature-care financing
Provide long-term finance directly to Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and civil society. Make resources readily accessible to ultra micro, micro, small and medium-sized regenerative producers over the long-term, such as flexible and patient capital, resulting in de-risked equitable and transparent investment that is outcome-oriented.
Uphold rights and equitable benefit-sharing
Ensure the use of traditional knowledge, genetic, and biological resources respects community and nature rights and shares revenues and technology fairly. Recognize collective rights, customary tenure, and cultural heritage.
Address Loss and Damage
Provide new grant funding proportional to historical responsibility for climate impacts, holding responsible institutions accountable.
Strengthen public participation, accountability and governance
Open policymaking to local and marginal voices, disclose funding flows, establish independent grievance mechanisms. Ensure effective engagement of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, women, youth, and vulnerable groups in decisions concerning them. Strengthen transparency and accountability of public institutions ensuring access to information and to justice.
Evolve new models of development partnership
Promote regional and south-south green economic transition partnerships combining trade, aid, investment, technical cooperation, technology transfer and science and innovation to build shared economic security.

The World Bank can advance these proposals through its investments, grants, and project accountability. The IMF can align debt and fiscal policies so countries have the resources to implement them. Both should uphold a shared principle: those who care for nature must have rights and resources; those who cause harm must take responsibility; and people must have the power to shape their future. In areas where there is already movement we encourage you to go further, faster.

We look forward to working with you to explore practical pathways to accelerate the transition already underway across the region.

Wishing you a successful meeting.

The Bangkok Climate Action Week Community
www.bangkokclimaeactionweek.org

Southeast Asian Climate Community Issue Open Letter to World Bank and IMF Delegates, Calling for New Economic Paradigm