BRICS: End the Western monopoly at the Bank and the Fund
As the World Bank and International Monetary Fund spring meetings get rolling, the BRICS appear set to demand that leadership of the two institutions not be the exclusive preserve of the Western powers. To this point, the managing director of the IMF has always been European and the president of the World Bank has always ...
As the World Bank and International Monetary Fund spring meetings get rolling, the BRICS appear set to demand that leadership of the two institutions not be the exclusive preserve of the Western powers. To this point, the managing director of the IMF has always been European and the president of the World Bank has always been American. This Bloomberg story suggests that a formal BRICS statement is imminent:
As the World Bank and International Monetary Fund spring meetings get rolling, the BRICS appear set to demand that leadership of the two institutions not be the exclusive preserve of the Western powers. To this point, the managing director of the IMF has always been European and the president of the World Bank has always been American. This Bloomberg story suggests that a formal BRICS statement is imminent:
Five of the largest emerging nations will push the U.S. and Europe to end their 65-year monopoly on leadership positions at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, according to two diplomats who helped negotiate a statement by the countries.
The management structure of the institutions needs to reflect changes in the world economy, the draft statement by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa says, according to the diplomats, who asked not to be identified because the final text isn’t public. The section calls for a bigger role for developing countries in global institutions, a reference to concerns with how leaders are chosen at the World Bank and IMF.
“We will insist on the fact that governance at the IMF and the World Bank cannot be a systematic rotation between the U.S. and Europe, with the other countries excluded,” Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff told reporters in Beijing April 12. “There is no reason for that.”
As luck would have it, there may soon be a vacancy at the top of the IMF, and the process of filling it could end up being a significant test of BRICS resolve.
David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist
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