Tana Johnson
Carnegie’s Global Order and Institutions Program identifies promising new multilateral initiatives and frameworks to realize a more peaceful, prosperous, just, and sustainable world. That mission has never been more important, or more challenging. Geopolitical competition, populist nationalism, economic inequality, technological innovation, and a planetary ecological emergency are testing the rules-based international order and complicating collective responses to shared threats. Our mission is to design global solutions to global problems.Learn More
There have been many calls—not least from developing countries—to reform major economic institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO). But before entertaining reform ideas, we must grapple with a pair of uncomfortable questions. Are these three organizations fully devoted to poorer countries’ economic and social development? And, are they uniquely equipped to deal with development? These questions are especially pertinent today, as the organizations wrestle with making economic growth “environmentally sustainable,” promoting climate-oriented development, and adding climate action to their already-complex portfolios. On both questions, there are reasons for skepticism.
Questioning Devotion to Development: Self-Preservation
The devotion to development is worth scrutinizing because all three organizations initially pivoted toward development less out of convicton than as broader moves toward organizational self-preservation. The World Bank pivoted first. Designed in 1944 with the primary task of helping advanced European countries with postwar reconstruction, the World Bank was sidelined in this task by early 1948, when the United States launched its own European Recovery Program (more colloquially known as the Marshall Plan) as part of geopolitical efforts to contain the Soviet Union.
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