Proinsias De Rossa
Question:272 Proinsias De Rossa asked the Minister for Finance the plans, if any, the Government has to make specific proposals for reform of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. [19363/98]
Written Answers - IMF and World Bank Reform.
Ireland has consistently supported the evolution of both the IMF and the World Bank group to meet their responsibilities in the face of a changing world environment and better understanding of what makes for stability, sustainable growth and development. In particular Ireland has supported greater transparency in the activities of the institutions and of their member countries and an increasing focus on social and civic aspects of programmes, in particular, targeting poverty reduction, which is the overarching aim of the World Bank.
Recent crises have thrown into sharp relief a number of other aspects of these institutions which need to be addressed. These include: (i) adequacy of funding, particularly for the IMF; (ii) speed of response to situations which are in the current situation changing very quickly; (iii) increased collaboration between the institutions, both in areas where their functions overlap, such as financial sector reform and where they are complementary, such as macro-economic stabilisation for the IMF and structural development for the World Bank; (iv) involvement of and ownership by, as broad a spectrum of stakeholders as possible in individual countries of these countries' stabilisation and development programmes. We have consistently put our views to the institutions, through our participation at ministerial level, at the annual meetings, through the relevant ministerial committees, interim and development, and through the board of executive directors. We have also facilitated feedback from NGOs working in the field, at all levels of the institutions.
Recent proposals for reform have highlighted the areas mentioned above and we have supported these reforms at various levels. Most recently in my speech to the annual meetings, I stressed the need to strengthen the IMF's role in crisis prevention and called for the international financial institutions to redouble their efforts to bring stability to the global financial and monetary system, but I also made it clear that I expected that the most vulnerable groups in society should be protected and that the private sector must bear its fair share of the overall burden of adjustment.
In brief, the Government is not putting forward separate additional proposals for reform of these institutions; we are supporting those proposals which are already on the table. In this regard I refer the Deputy to my speech to the annual meetings and the communiqués of the interim and development committees of these institutions. I have put these documents in the Library. They can also be accessed at the Internet sites of the IMF and World Bank. These sites are continuing to reflect a policy of increased openness in the running of the institutions.