The managing director of the International Monetary Fund has said he is “available” for a second five-year term at the head of the Washington-based financial institution, shortly after receiving the backing of European finance ministers, AFP reported.
“I am not running to force people to elect me, but I am available to serve if people want,” Kristalina Georgieva said in a video interview before her speech in the British city of Cambridge.
The head of the BNB with a decisive step for the future of Kristalina and the IMF
“I would bring the determination that the Fund will be an institution that leans forward in solving the most challenging problems we face,” she said.
These challenges include boosting productivity and growth “so that more people have a better chance”, dealing with increased post-pandemic debt levels and making the IMF “more inclusive and more representative so that it benefits the trust of our members and people,” she added.
The IMF officially launched the process to select its next head on Wednesday, a day after European Union (EU) finance ministers backed Georgieva.
EU support could be crucial for Georgieva, as a European has run the Fund since its inception in 1944 due to a controversial, informal arrangement that in the past saw a European head the IMF and an American the World Bank.
Given the huge influence Europe wields over the nomination process, the EU’s announcement sharply reduces the likelihood of success for others whose names have been linked to the role, such as Pascal Donohoe, Ireland’s minister for public expenditure.
The IMF has said it wants the process to end by the end of April, well before Georgieva’s current term ends on September 30, 2024.
In her speech at King’s College, Cambridge, Georgieva took a long-term look at the challenges and opportunities facing the global economy and argued that policymakers need to fix “maintaining high economic equality”.
In her prepared remarks, she highlighted three priority areas for long-term investment: climate, artificial intelligence and boosting capital flows to Africa.
In her speech, Georgieva stated that uncontrolled climate change “will be catastrophic” for the planetbut insisted that “decisive policy action” this decade could help the world achieve a carbon-neutral economy.
“I realize that we are going through a very difficult period, we have been hit by shock after shock after shock,” Georgieva said before the speech.
“So when decisions are being made about resource allocation, it’s at a particularly difficult time,” she said.
“My goal in the work of the Fund is to provide the best recommendation on how to balance these different pressures and how to do it in the most responsible way for future generations,” she added.
Georgieva said the IMF had been “surprised” by the resilience of global growth this year, despite the decision by many central banks to raise interest rates to tackle inflation.
In the US, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates to a 23-year high as it battles inflation that remains above its long-term target of two percent.
“Economies with strong fundamentals perform better,” she said, adding: “This also applies to Africa.”
“We see that in Africa some economies are doing quite well because of strong fundamentals, because of investing in the right things, investing in people, in quality infrastructure, in the digital economy,” she said.
“And what we want from the IMF is to use our commitment, our programs and our political commitments to drive this fundamental progress, building a strong foundation for the future in Africa.”
Georgieva said the challenge for the IMF is to overcome the differences between “strong” African economies such as Ivory Coast and Benin and some other countries on the continent.
“What we want is to bring Africa up so that the difference in results between the best and worst performing countries shrinks,” she said, BGNES reported.
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