By Aliyu Galadima
International Monetary Fund has admitted that the current multilateral system cannot produce the desired prosperity for Nigeria, other emerging economies, and the world.
The Washington-based lender revealed this in a statement on its 80th anniversary celebration.
In the speech, the Chief, Policy Communications, IMF, Gita Bhatt said the biggest challenges from global warming to demographic and technological transformations cannot be resolved by countries acting alone.
The lender which was established in July 1944 at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, United States currently has 190 members.
Bhatt said, “The economic fortunes of their regions depend, in many ways, on a better multilateral system, and they suggest ways in which the IMF can deliver that for its members.
“Just when we need greater international cooperation, we get the opposite: more fragmentation, conflict, and global disengagement; more zero-sum thinking that risks leaving our world poorer and less secure”.
Bhatt said IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva calls for “21st century multilateralism”.
She said the 21st-century multilateralism is a framework for international cooperation that is more open and representative, with a better balance between advanced economies and the voices of emerging market and developing economies
Recall that the President of Kenya, William Ruto has been at the forefront of the call for a new financial order.
“Nations including Kenya pay far more to borrow money than their Western counterparts, creating a vicious cycle of debt. We want to pay equal to everybody”, Ruto argued at the global leaders’ forum in Paris last year.
