NK Singh, Lawrence Summers at Express Adda today

Quite disappointing

NK Singh, Lawrence Summers at Express Adda today

POLICYMAKER, ECONOMIST and politician N K Singh and Charles W Eliot University Professor, President Emeritus at Harvard and former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence H Summers are the co-chairs of the key G20 Expert Group on “Strengthening Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs)” under India’s G20 presidency. According to Singh and Summers, while MDBs are armed with the expertise, leverage, and capabilities needed to assist developing countries, these institutions need to undergo a rather long-awaited transformation before helping the Global South transform itself.

Singh and Summers will be the guest at the Express Adda in Mumbai on Tuesday and will be in conversation with Anant Goenka, Executive Director, The Indian Express group. The event comes close on the heels of the New Delhi G20 Summit under India’s Presidency, which achieved a consensus for the joint communiqué, with its careful combination of the right diplomatic timing and wide strategic vision. There is also a renewed focus on the concerns of the Global South amid the global geopolitical churn and the need to pursue reforms for better, bigger, and more effective MDBs to address global challenges to maximise developmental impact.

This also comes at a time when rising interest rates have left a number of countries with high debt burdens and the global economy is turning more inwards and taking an increasingly protectionist stance. The G20 New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration had stressed on the need for an international finance system that is fit for the purpose, including for the scale of need and depth of the shocks facing developing countries in the 21st century. G20 leaders have supported the push for stronger MDBs as they will be important to the efforts to mobilise financing from all sources for a quantum jump from billions to trillions of dollars for development, along with an endorsement of the G20 roadmap to implement the recommendations of the G20 independent review of MDBs Capital Adequacy Frameworks (CAFs).

The expert group, chaired by Singh and Summers, had submitted its first report to the G20 Chair in July in Gandhinagar, recommending a triple agenda to address eliminating extreme poverty, inclusive growth and the financing of global public goods along with a suggestion to constitute a ‘Global Challenges Funding’ mechanism for ‘Global Public Goods’. The second volume of the report, which will provide a roadmap, would come up for discussion at the World Bank and IMF annual meetings in Marrakesh in October.

Singh and Summers have proposed a transformation of the operations of the MDBs, beginning with the World Bank. The continuing larger financing needs of developing countries to meet development and climate goals have been highlighted by them with the view that the MDBs have not kept pace with such disbursements at the required rate.

The G20 leaders in their declaration have taken note of the recommendations listed in the first volume of the expert group’s report, stating that the MDBs may choose to discuss these recommendations as relevant and appropriate, within their governance frameworks, in due course, with a view to enhance the effectiveness of MDBs.

Singh and Summers come with their diverse set of experiences in the fields of finance, economy and politics over the years. Singh was the chairperson of the 15th Finance Commission and was the economic advisor to then Prime Minister A B Vajpayee. He has been recently appointed as a member of the eight-member high-level committee to examine and make recommendations for holding simultaneous elections to Lok Sabha, state assemblies, municipalities and panchayats.

Summers has served in a series of senior policy positions, including Vice President for Development Economics and Chief Economist of the World Bank, Undersecretary of the Treasury for International Affairs, Director of the National Economic Council for the Obama Administration from 2009 to 2011, and Secretary of the Treasury of the US, from 1999 to 2001.

The Express Adda is a series of informal interactions organised by The Indian Express Group and features those at the centre of change. Previous guests at the Adda include External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekaran, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, Union Housing and Urban Affairs and Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri and Union Railway, Communications, and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw.

Express News Service – 2023-09-26 04:00

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