Should the annual IMF/ World Bank meetings be restructured?

• Position: A Symposium Of Views

For years, participants at the annual IMF/World Bank meetings have grumbled that the annual gathering needs restructuring. Some of the criticism stems from the fact that the meetings themselves, coming after the G7 policymakers have gathered and are heading for the airport, are almost an afterthought. Because the recent terrorist attacks in Washington and New York led to the postponement of this year's annual gathering, perhaps a window of opportunity has opened to revamp the structure of this gathering of the world's public and private financial elite.

TIE asked four experts what suggestions they would offer in this regard. Here's what they said:

WENDY DOBSON

Director, Institute for International Business, University of Toronto and former Associate Deputy Minister of Finance in Canada.

Yes. The current hiatus provides an opportunity to restructure the international processes (if not the institutions) to achieve more focus and inclusiveness in addressing the basic priorities of finance and development. The G7 will continue to pay most of the bills, set agendas, and manage global economic crises. But the G7 cannot by itself provide the kind of collective leadership that is required in the integrating world economy of 2001. The G20, by including new players with financial clout, mainly in East Asia, and others with regional-cum-global systemic significance, such as Brazil, India, and Turkey, is one step in this new direction.

Global meetings should build on regional forums. As East Asians have argued since the 1997-98 economic crisis, a regional financial grouping will help build the shared understanding on which closer cooperation and financial crisis management can be built.

Global meetings should also build on functional forums. The development challenges articulated in the UN Millennium Declaration are clear. Consider these targets for 2015: to reduce by half both the share of the world's population living on less than a dollar a day, and those without safe drinking water. All children should also be able to complete primary schooling by then.

These are concrete but challenging targets that governments by themselves will not be able to achieve. Functional development forums that include the IFIs, NGOs, and government and private sector representatives from both North and South should plan the necessary campaigns and assess progress.

With more decentralized and inclusive structures of these kinds, a global meeting of finance and...