Caught between America and China, the fund’s purpose is unclear
three-week conference at Bretton Woods in 1944, one delegate contrasted the “extraordinarily beautiful” venue—the Mount Washington hotel—with the “glorious confusion” of negotiations. Yet the bedlam gave birth to the world’s most important international economic institution: the International Monetary Fund , which was founded to ensure global macroeconomic stability. In the nearly 80 years since its creation, the fund has lent $700bn to 150 countries.
“We have worked very hard to get the Chinese leadership to recognise that with more wealth comes more responsibility,” says Ms Georgieva. Success has so far been limited. As Brad Setser of the Council on Foreign Relations, a think-tank, notes, “They’ve had three years, and the arguments have got more and more ridiculous.”
Pakistan is not the only laggard. Egypt has hosted four programmes in less than a decade. Argentina, the worst offender, has had to fudge targets in its most recent bail-out, worth $44bn and granted last year. It was once believed the fund had the ability to impose the “Washington consensus” on feckless governments with the stroke of a pen. Now it looks like it is being taken for a ride.
There are only so many people with the skill to make tricky calls on climate finance or poverty reduction. Theis nabbing staff from the World Bank . Yet the fund still cannot get health and climate cash out the door. It is hard to find projects that meet its tough criteria. Setting up green bonds, which the fund has been doing, is handy but hardly tops development wish lists.will struggle to become a World Bank clone, it therefore faces a choice of two paths.
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