International Finance Reform And The Case For Leadership Change At The World Bank

The IMF and World bank annual meetings will take place in Washington this week. These meetings take place in a context of magnified calls to revise the international financial architecture, almost 80 years after its creation. Persistent weak leadership at the World Bank has made those calls only louder.

Which kind of structural changes could be envisaged?

Some background. As a result of the 1944 Bretton Woods treaty, the World Bank Group emerged to reduce poverty and generate shared prosperity with the developing world, and the International Monetary Fund was established to monitor and ensure a robust international monetary system. Notwithstanding their purposeful design and inedible footprint over the years, both institutions struggle with mandate definitions, design constraints and the outsized role of the dollar. The American economy, defined by GDP, represents now less than 20% of…