For over a week, we’ve been keeping you posted on what everyone at the all-important World Bank-International Monetary Fund annual meetings have been talking about: Reforming the global financial architecture to better reflect today’s challenges — and address the gross power imbalance between the global north and south.
But the U.N. is getting in on the act — that is, if the U.S. and Russia don’t stand in the way.
The U.N. Pact for the Future, agreed to after plenty of hand-wringing and arm-twisting at the U.N. General Assembly in September, proposes revamping the international financial system, among other things. While the body has historically played a bit role in international finance, as the world’s most representative organization, with 193 member states — many of them without a voice at the World Bank and IMF — the U.N. has been pressing for a broader say in decision-making, my colleague Colum Lynch writes.
“The system was conceived by a group of rich countries and naturally it basically benefits rich countries,” António Guterres, the U.N.’s secretary-general, has said.
But those countries are loath to give up those perks. What’s more, if Donald Trump is elected to a second term in the White House, the situation could become even more chaotic.
“Are people concerned? Of course they’re concerned,” says Bob Rae, Canada’s U.N. ambassador and this year’s president of the U.N. Economic and Social Council. “I mean, I would sound like a bit of an idiot if I said nobody’s talking about it.”
But in the end, Rae says, “the American public will make up their own mind as to what they are going to do. So what we think is not really relevant to the outcome.”
Russia — which vehemently opposed the Pact for the Future — isn’t helping matters, though Rae has a reality check for Moscow.