This year, it will set another record for investment in developing countries. To sustain its vital role, it is working with its shareholders to strengthen its capital base. A well-capitalized World Bank leverages all its shareholders’ investments by pooling them and then raising five times the capital by borrowing in financial markets. It then uses these funds in cooperation with aid partners, old and new, public and private.
We feel an especially strong sense of urgency as we approach the deadline of 2015 for achieving the Millennium Development Goals, which aim to reduce extreme poverty, hunger and child mortality. The next few years will be critical. The G20’s call for ambitious replenishment of the International Development Association, the World Bank’s fund for the poorest countries, is vital if we are to make headway.
At the dawn of today’s multilateral system in 1944, 44 countries gathered in the US at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to design the World Bank, the IMF and a system for international trade. At that time, power was concentrated in a small number of states. The great waves of decolonization were just stirring; the few developing countries were seen as marginal players in the global system — not as central actors or agents of history. Before long, allies in the war against fascism split apart in a Cold War.
That world is long gone. The new realities of the global political economy demand a different system. Developing countries and newer market economies are part of the solution — so they must also be part of the conversation and decision-making process. We hope that this week’s discussion in Moscow prompts a broader international dialogue with new development partners. We urge other donors and international organizations to join us in contributing to the “Moscow Process” as we modernize multilateralism.
Alexei Kudrin is deputy prime minister and minister of finance of Russia; Robert Zoellick is president of the World Bank.
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