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World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick said Monday that the global economic crisis is contributing to shifts in power relations in the World that will impact currency markets, monetary policy, trade relations and the role of developing countries. In a speech ahead of the Annual Meetings in Istanbul, Turkey, of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), Zoellick said leaders should reshape the multilateral system and forge a “responsible globalization” that would encourage balanced global growth and financial stability, embrace global efforts to counter climate change, and advance opportunity for the poorest. “The old international economic order was struggling to keep up with change before the crisis,” Zoellick told an audience at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of the Johns Hopkins University, in Washington, D.C. Read more

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Leaders of the G-20 nations are expected to reaffirm their pledges to promote Free Trade at the upcoming Pittsburgh summit, as protectionism has proven to be an obstacle to world economic recovery.

“The temperature is rising, creeping protectionism is reaching a dangerous zone,” World Bank President Robert Zoellick said last week. “Actions and announcements of new barriers not only block trade and could impede a fragile recovery, but they risk frightening skittish financial markets,” he continued. At the G-20 summit in London last April, leaders pledged to “refrain from raising new barriers to investment to trade in good sand services, imposing new export restrictions. … We extend this pledge to the end of 2010.” But G-20 members have passed more than 100 “blatantly discriminatory measures,” according to a recent report by Global Trade Alert. GTA is a team of trade analysts backed by the World Bank and the UK government. Read more

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Last weeks long awaited G20 Summit Communique lifted the hopes of the world’s investors and leaves a lot of work to be done going forward by the Group. The language of the was vague and optimistic

The Highlights:
On Resources: The G-20 announced US$50B for low-income countries, and an additional US$100B in lending for Development Banks.

On Reform: Developing countries will have greater representation in the international financial institutions and that election to World Bank/IMF leadership will be based on merit.
On Regulation: The G-20 announced regulation of illicit tax havens.

As with all world summits, the G-20, just stated the goals and heralded the agreements of the parity countries leaving the hard specific work to be done.

The powers that be need to work to ensure that money going to developing countries is given as grants, not loans that trigger another debt crisis.

There remains much work to be done on the Green Agenda in the interests of developing countries at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen later this year.

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