May 31, 2010WEF vice-chair calls for overhaul of IMF
A report prepared by Malloch-Brown and other experts has focused on the need to increase the ‘legitimacy and effectiveness’ of global institutions such as the UN
Global institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) need to be ‘upgraded, recalibrated and re-tooled’ with stronger developing country representation to tackle newer challenges, World Economic Forum vice-chair Lord Mark Malloch-Brown has said.
While some people have questioned the ‘relevance and existence’ of the IMF, the fact remains that it is a ‘hugely important institution’, which the global community relied on ‘tremendously’ last year, Malloch-Brown said.
“Last year, they provided around $1tn resources following the global economic turbulence. And now with the new eurozone crisis, it is once again at the heart of the rescue effort,” Malloch-Brown said in an interview with Gulf Times yesterday.
A report prepared by Malloch-Brown and other experts have called for a change in the ownership of these institutions so that they can have stronger representation of developing countries.
“But that’s already happening,” points out Malloch-Brown, who was the British government’s foreign office minister of state responsible for its relations with Africa, Asia and the United Nations between 2007 and 2009.
He said the report contains suggestions about the need to increase the ‘legitimacy and effectiveness’ of global institutions such as the UN.
“I think there is a big demand for improving these institutions. There is a feeling that these institutions are not operating as they can. But the mood is not to replace them and start yet again. These institutions have presided over the most important set of global changes in the history of human kind. In the decades since the Second World War, we have seen a more rapid advancement in human life expectancy, education, health and wealth than at any other point in human history,” said Malloch-Brown, formerly the UN’s deputy secretary-general under Kofi Annan.
He said IMF and global institutions need to be ‘legitimate as well as effective’.
“The G20 is very effective, because it is a much smaller group of countries. But it is not necessarily legitimate as it is not formed by any treaty. Nor is it a representative of the whole global community,” Malloch-Brown said.
Asked for his views on the global economy, Malloch-Brown, who once served the World Bank in a senior capacity, said, “I think these are very uncertain days. The market confidence is in short supply. And it has been so since the global events of 2008-09.
“And so while on paper, this is a manageable crisis and need not have a contagion effect to go wider across the zone, there is a real risk that markets doubt the ability of politicians to lead decisively on this issue. If we are not careful, this could turn a cold into pneumonia,” Malloch-Brown warned.
On the idea behind organising the World Economic Forum Global Redesign Summit in Doha, Lord Malloch-Brown said, “This meeting is like a market place, an intellectual souq. The intention is to allow the governments to shop among different ideas and take home things, which they think are interesting. We have people from all sectors – public and private - represented here.”
The World Economic Forum launched its Global Redesign Initiative earlier in 2009 as part of a global dialogue to develop proposals on reshaping the structures of worldwide cooperation.
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=365146&version=1&template_id=48&parent_id=28
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