Address at IMF: French President Advocates Solidarity Among Nations to Tackle Debt, Poverty

• Pages: 72-73

Page 72

It is with great pleasure that I greet and offer warm thanks to Michel Camdessus, [World Bank President] Jim Wolfensohn, and [IDB President] Enrique Iglesias,

French President Jacques Chirac addresses IMF, IDB, and World Bank staff. Also pictured (l to r): IDB President Enrique Iglesias, World Bank President James Wolfensohn, IMF Managing Director Michel Camdessus, and French Finance Minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn who have afforded me this occasion to meet with you. My visit is the first by a French head of state to the Bretton Woods organizations, and it is not just a courtesy visit. For me, it is an event charged with great significance. It is both a demonstration of confidence and an urgent plea to the institutions you represent.

I would like, first, to recognize the work already accomplished. I fully realize the difficulties and responsibilities involved. Your organizations have served global development well. France has confidence in them and fully supports their efforts at adapting themselves to better serve the needs of the twenty-first century.

The world of today is very different from the postwar world that led to the creation of your institutions. The globalization of markets, capital, and economies has become a reality, and the need for cooperation, coordination, and risk sharing is more necessary than ever. This new world confers important new responsibilities upon you.

We need to better organize the global economy, and you must be at the forefront of this effort. Representing the whole community of nations legitimizes your role. This is why France is in favor of increasing the resources necessary for your mission, whether it be for quotas and for financing the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility at the IMF, for IDA [International Development Association] at the World Bank, or for the resources of the IDB.

But there must be something to counterbalance the expansion of your roles and the confidence that governments place in you: the general policy orientation of your institutions must be defined by the political authorities of your shareholders. Ministers in the governing bodies must act side by side with the respective Boards of Directors, whose roles are irreplaceable, to give impetus to, and provide democratic oversight for, the policy directions adopted. This is the spirit in which France has proposed transforming the...