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IMF restructuring 'should go beyond adjusting quotas'

By Li Xing and Ding Qingfen (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-06-25 07:21

TORONTO - Reforms in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) must go beyond readjustment of the quota shares to include adjusting the representation status and allowing economists of different backgrounds to join as senior staff.

Thomas A. Bernes, former IMF executive director for Canada, Ireland and the Caribbean.

A broader range of reforms in the global financial institution is needed to give it "even-handedness" to make its analyses and policy advice more effective, Thomas A. Bernes, the IMF executive director for Canada, Ireland and the Caribbean between 1996 to September 2001, told China Daily in an exclusive interview.

A major problem at the IMF is that "the emerging markets have not felt that the institution is sufficiently even-handed," he said.

"Too often it reflects the interests of large industrial countries. That has made acceptance of their analyses and policy recommendations very difficult", and its impact limited, he said.

While recognizing ongoing discussions within G20 that are making further advances in terms of quotas, the adjustment of the shares "is only a part of a broader issue", Bernes said.

"There is the need to adjust the chairs," said Bernes, who is now executive director and vice-president of the Centre for International Governance Innovation, a think-tank based in Canada.

Before taking up his current job at the think tank, Bernes held a number of important posts with international financial institutions. He was executive secretary of the joint IMF-World Bank Development Committee and deputy corporate secretary of the World Bank between October 2001 and 2005.

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He has also been assistant deputy minister of finance and G7 finance deputy in Canada, and served as the senior international economic official representing Canada at high-level meetings. In addition to holding various senior finance, foreign affairs and trade policy positions within the Canadian government, Bernes served as head of the OECD's (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) General Trade Policy Division in the mid-1980s.

His last job at the IMF was director of the fund's independent evaluation office from 2005 to last year, which gave him the opportunity to find problems with the IMF. During this time, he became more aware of its reform needs.

At present, the IMF has 24 chairs and Europeans hold eight or nine of them, according to the changes in the number of constituents, he said.

Moreover, most of the senior staff have nearly the same education background. "Unless you are coming from one of the Ivy League schools in the United States, you won't really be up to the standard," he said.

However, many big universities are around the world, including Canada and China, he noted.

"For the IMF to be seen as an independent source of advice and policy recommendations, clearly it has to make progress over the share issue, the holdings issue and on the question of more balanced representations of chairs and the board, as well as a better distribution of senior positions," he said.

"We need to have the sense that there is a fair representation and better integration of economists from various parts of the world, and from various educational backgrounds," he said.

"IMF will begin to have more legitimacy only when we achieve that," he said.

Debates about reforms at the IMF started immediately after the Asian financial crisis in 1997. The crisis showed that the traditional model promoted by the IMF did not work and even G7 "was not capable of providing the consensus", Bernes said.

As chief of the evaluation at the IMF, Bernes commissioned studies to learn how countries view IMF advice. The last report he commissioned came out early this year, which "painted a picture where for the large industrial countries, they saw their roles to supervise other countries, while not really paying attention to us (IMF)".

The emerging markets were "equally dismissive". They were "not prepared to involve themselves in the IMF unless some of the large governance issues were addressed", Bernes said.

For the IMF to work, "everybody has to accept even-handedness and legitimacy. But it has been moving slowly".

"One hopes that the G20 this year will accelerate this process," he said.