International Council Meeting 2006 |
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Singapore
On September 18, 2006, the Committee held its annual International Council meeting in Singapore at The Oriental. Sir David Walker chaired the meeting on behalf of the Bretton Woods Committee. Juan Jose Daboub, the new Managing Director at the World Bank, Agustin Carstens, Deputy Managing Director at the International Monetary Fund and Jean-Claude Trichet, President of the European Central Bank led the discussions. Some of the key recommendations included:
- Recognizing the importance of the private sector: the IMF and the World Bank should engage in a dialogue with the private sector on issues such as the new contingent finance facility;
- Harmonizing policies and strategies between lenders, private sector and multilateral and bilateral institutions;
- Working with integration: in the transition of a world that has been government-led to a world that is increasingly market-led, integrate the work of private financial institutions with the work of the multilaterals and determine how this could be accomplished;
- Increasing government pledges to IDA 15 and examining the role of the International Council on this issue;
- Helping multilateral institutions to solve various "free rider problems" including the provision of new loans to countries following multilateral debt reduction;
- Resolving the question of finance if the IMF and the World Bank increasingly provide public goods; and
- Deciding whether the WTO and growing protectionism should be part of the International Council's mandate.
In conjunction with the Annual Meeting of the World Bank/IMF, the next International Council meeting will take place in October 2007.
