“Rich and emerging-market nations agreed to commit a record $52 billion over three years to a World Bank fund to aid the world’s poorest countries, the bank said on Tuesday,” Reuters/Huffington Post reports. “The figure marks an increase of about five percent from the last time the International Development Association, or IDA, was topped up in 2010,” the news agency writes, noting, “[F]or the first time, some of the money will be given in the form of low-interest loans, not grants, totaling just over $4 billion” (Yukhananov, 12/17). “We are committed to making the most of every scarce development dollar to create new opportunities and bring about transformational change in the lives of poor people,” World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim said in a statement (12/17).