Köhler meets with parliamentarians

AuthorSabina Bhatia
PositionIMF External Relations Department
Pages89

Page 89

On March 9-10, 140 members of parliament from around the world gathered in Athens for the fourth annual conference of the Parliamentary Network on the World Bank-a group formed to help the international organization and parliamentarians understand each other better. This informal network of about 400 legislators in 60 industrial, developing, and transition countries focuses on development issues in general and the work of the World Bank in particular. This year, however, the network's members wanted to hear from the Bank's sister organization as well. In response to an invitation, IMF Managing Director Horst Köhler addressed the meeting and participated in a question-and-answer session.

The Athens meeting of legislators, which also drew participants from nongovernmental organizations and think tanks, focused on a range of development-related issues-including trade, aid, and the Millennium Development Goals-and the role of parliaments in identifying and implementing more effective solutions. There was a general feeling that parliamentarians could play a bigger role than they had in the past. But participants voiced their frustrations, too, commenting on a lack of information about country negotiations with the World Bank and the IMF and complaining that executive branches typically did not share information, especially on the budget. (Several legislators, in fact, appealed to the heads of the Bretton Woods institutions for help in getting more access to information from their governments.) Developing country parliamentarians also noted that their small staffs and scant resources made research and analysis difficult and prevented them from playing a more effective role in complex policy debates.

Listening and learning

Köhler's active participation in the Athens meeting is in keeping with recent IMF efforts to reach out to parliamentarians and engage in two-way exchanges of views. The IMF recognizes that, in all democratic countries, parliaments are asked to pass budgets and approve major economic reforms, notably those undertaken in the context of IMF-supported adjustment programs.

More dialogue between the IMF and parliaments helps the IMF better understand country constraints and enables legislators to better appreciate the trade-offs implicit in economic policy choices.

In his remarks, Köhler stressed that the IMF is a learning institution. It has no illusions, he said, that it holds all the...

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