Report on the Centad's Team's feedback to the IMF reforms

The Trade and Finance programme team members of Centad participated in a conference on the IMF reforms. This was an important step towards Centre’s networking and advocacy for reforms in the Bretton Woods institutions, which have assumed a renewed significance in the post economic crisis global scenario.

Anurag Srivastava, Convenor of the Trade and Finance Programme and Keshav Parthasarthy, Research intern at the Centre participated in the conference held on 11th August, 2009 at the World Bank premises in New Delhi. CENTAD had been invited by Jo Marie Griesgraber (l), Executive Director of New Rules for Global Finance Coalition for the same.

New Rules works with the mission of Promoting stable global financial systems that reduce poverty and inequality by advocating technically sound approaches to be undertaken by global financial institutions, and by advancing reforms of the governance and practices of these institutions. Ms. Jo Marie Griesgraber , Executive Director of New Rules for Global Finance Coalition has extensive research and advocacy experience related to the same spanning several years and is one of the most influential voices for reforms in global finance and related institutions. The New Rules is the foremost organisation in command of what has come to be termed the Fouth Pillar in the IMF reform process.

Centad participation was part of civil society feedback to the New Rules which in turn has been shared with the IMF. New Rules remains the only CSO with this mandate and Centad had the privilege of presenting the viewpoint from India¹.

The 11th August conference was held between Centad staff Anurag Srivastava and Research Intern, Keshav Parthasarthy; the CSO representatives from Jakarta, Indonesia and Ms. Griesgraber and IMF staffers in Washington DC. The conference aimed primarily at eliciting CSO response to The New Rules position paper on IMF reforms. The paper (Fourth Pillar report) was a comprehensive compendium of reform issues touching on inter alia conditionality, accountability and the role of executive Board and Management. The Centad representatives read and comprehensively researched the report and held detailed discussion on it’s various aspects. A summary of the key discussions is as under:

• Regarding accountability the evaluation of the IMF Executive Board by an external experts panel and the evaluation of the Managing Director by the Executive Board were discussed.
• The need for greater transparency in the IMF mechanisms was highlighted. Timely and accurate publication of details by the IMF was considered as an important measure for increasing transparency.
• Renegotiation of Quotas was discussed and a new formula for calculating Quota shares of various countries were discussed and debated upon. There was consensus on the fact that the present quota system did not reflect the realities of the 21st century and Developing countries should get a greater share of IMF quota.
• The possibility of setting up an external complaint mechanism with the core element as an Ombudsman was also discussed and the cost and benefits of setting it up were evaluated.
• Regarding IMF internal governance there was consensus among members that there needs to be clear delineation of roles of the Executive Board and Management. The highly skewed executive board representation in favour of European countries and the United States was seen as wanting for reforms. The present inactive role of the IMFC was emphasised upon. The need for selection of the Managing Director purely on the basis of merit and not nationality was reiterated.