Reforming the IMF and World Bank

An academic from the University of Oxford has addressed G20 members, Commonwealth heads of government, the European Union and the World Economic Forum at Davos on her ideas about how to reform the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

The World Bank provides leveraged loans to developing countries for capital programmes and aims to reduce poverty. The IMF helps countries in crisis. However, one of the strongest criticisms of both institutions has been about the way they are governed. Professor Ngaire Woods from the Department of Politics and International Relations has researched these problems and put forward practical suggestions for reform.

Many of her suggestions for change are now being implemented in these international agencies, resulting in improved governance and accountability. 

Although the World Bank and IMF between them represent 186 countries, each is run by just a small number of economically powerful countries. These countries choose the leadership and senior management, and so their interests dominate, despite the fact that the main borrowers from the World Bank and IMF are developing countries. One of Professor Woods' recommendations was to shift the focus from the needs of the USA and European countries to those of developing countries by reforming the voting structure. By 2010, voting powers at the IMF and the World Bank had been revised to increase the voice of developing countries, notably China, Brazil, India, South Korea and Mexico.