Developing nations should be invited to join G8 talks

By Stewart Fleming

JAMES WOLFENSOHN, the president of the World Bank, has put his weight behind efforts to bring developing countries into the circle of global governance represented by the Group of Seven (G7) leading advanced industrial countries.

Wolfensohn was asked during a visit to Brussels on Wednesday (20 October) whether the best way to mobilize political leaders to act together to tackle global problems such as poverty, inequality, terrorism, environmental degradation and political instability was to expand the membership of the G8 (the G7 plus Russia) or give a bigger role to the United Nations.

“My personal view, not a World Bank view, is that change will not happen without leadership at the top level,” he said. “We need a group of 15 or 20 leaders meeting ten days a year, acting as global not domestic leaders and devoting significant amounts of their time to these issues.” The meetings should be held in different capitals around the world including for example Rio de Janiero and Addis Ababa, he added.

While expressing his support for Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the UN, he said that having 200 people in a room making four-minute speeches was not the best way to inject momentum into efforts to tackle global challenges. Evidence that the G7 itself is recognizing that a change of format is needed in order to tackle global problems came earlier this month, at the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. For the first time, the Chinese finance minister was asked to take part in an informal G7 finance ministers lunch.

European Voice asked James Wolfensohn, President of the World Bank for his opinion on how to integrate developing countries into the circle of global governance represented by the Group of Seven (G7) leading advanced industrial countries.