IMF bids to become global lender
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) indicated its ambition to take on further responsibility as a global lender after an annual meeting with the World Bank yesterday.
The reform would see it become the lender of last resort and an economic supervisor for the G20′s sustainable growth plan. Four key reform areas will be the IMF’s mandate, its financing role, multilateral surveillance, and governance.
However, division among members unsure as to whether this was the best course of action, and an uncertain global economic recovery, may count against its ambitions.
Carlos Quenan from the Institute of the Americas in France said that while the fund has distinguished itself as the only international institution that can deliver aid, “the credibility of the fund still is precarious”.
He added: “It remains unclear what will be the conditionality on the new loans and how voting power will be shifted to give emerging countries more weight and thus gain better credibility.”
IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn stressed that the transformation was still in its infancy: “This annual meeting may be the starting point of a new IMF. We have come a long way, but the journey is not over.”
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