Business | Economy

Brown calls for major reform of global outfits

The world's international organisations need major reform, said UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, pointing out that the IMF, World Bank and United Nations were all set up in the 1940s and were designed for a very different world.

  • By Francis Matthew, Editor at Large
  • Published: 00:19 January 26, 2008
  • Gulf News

Davos: The world's international organisations need major reform, said UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, pointing out that the IMF, World Bank and United Nations were all set up in the 1940s and were designed for a very different world. "If we do not reform our institutions they will become irrelevant," he said.

"The World Bank should take on new responsibilities to help countries tackle their environmental challenges. It should tackle poverty alleviation, help set up a carbon market, and help move countries to alternative energy sources," he said.

"The IMF needs to become more of a world central bank, able to gather information and become an early warning system so that we will be able to avoid something like the subprime crisis by knowing that it was coming our way much earlier than happened this time."

Market regulators work at a national level, and they cannot cope with a global economy. Such a new role for the IMF would mean that "people can be in better communication about what the risks are and how to deal with them," he said.

"It is not just economic and financial challenges. We do not have a proper organisation to handle failed states, non-state terrorism, global pandemics, and we do not know how the internet will transform people wanting to express their views world wide," he said.

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