May 7, 2009
Has the G20 revived the neoliberal, austerity-wielding IMF of the 1980s and 90s, are has it ushered in a new IMF 2.0 (in the words of Time Magazine) that cares about countercyclical economic policies, public services and jobs? In late April, IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Khan wrote to NGOs saying ‘I would like to make it clear that we do not
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What the IMF will be discussing this weekend
April 20, 2009
The global diplomatic circus that so recently met at the G20 summit in London is reconvening in Washington for the IMF and World Bank spring meetings this weekend. These are usually the lesser of the Bretton Woods Institutions’ (BWIs) two yearly jamborees (the Annual Meetings are held in September) but the momentum provided by both the G20 and the unfolding global
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The G20: What happens next?
April 6, 2009
Now the dust has settled, we’ve caught up on lost sleep, and recovered from that slight hint of Stockholm Syndrome created by the collective hysteria of a summit, it’s time to stand back and think about what happens next. As part of that exercise, here are the forward-looking processes that the G20 put in place to review, monitor, propose further
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G20: What’s in Play as Summit Day dawns?
April 2, 2009
The big day dawns in a fog of confusion and press reports of rifts between continental Europe and the Anglo Saxons, following what were portrayed as rival press conferences by Obama and Brown in one part of London, and Sarkozy and Merkel in another. Today will show how much of this was just playing to the domestic gallery – Sarkozy
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What does the leaked draft G20 communique tell us about development and climate change?
March 31, 2009
The FT has got its hands on a leaked copy, as has der Spiegel (a different draft, it seems, but I can’t find that one on the net). The FT version is nice and short (24 paras). Here’s what it says on Oxfam’s main asks for the summit, namely:
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IMF finally calls it – the world economy will shrink in 2009, and developing countries are hit harder than we thought
March 20, 2009
Every revision of global growth predictions has been heading towards zero, and now the IMF, in its report to the G20 finance ministers’ meeting last weekend, has taken the next step. It predicts the world economy will shrink in 2009, (by minus 0.5-1%) for the first time in 60 years. It’s pretty safe to assume that this won’t be the
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How badly is the crisis hitting the poorest countries? Here’s what the IMF thinks
March 12, 2009
The IMF has a new paper out summarizing the impact of the global crisis on 78 ‘low income countries’ (LICs) – the world’s poorest, many of them in Sub-Saharan Africa. Its findings include:
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I’ll see your trillion and raise you another one: how big a bailout does the developing world need?
March 5, 2009
Talk of mere billions is for wimps these days. I’ve just read two proposals for ‘big numbers’ on bailouts to help developing countries get through the global economic crisis, one from the World Bank’s chief economist, Justin Lin, and the other from Washington thinktank CGD’s Nancy Birdsall. Nancy’s paper, entitled ‘How to Unlock the $1 Trillion’, reckons ‘as much as
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What needs to happen at the G20 summit on Saturday
December 13, 2008
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