Selecting the IMF’s Next Managing Director in an Open, Transparent, and Merit-Based Process

Benjamin Mkapa, the former Tanzanian president and the Chairperson of the South Centre board makes a call for selecting the IMF’s Next Managing Director through an Open, Transparent, and Merit-Based Process. According to Mr. Mkapa:

The decision of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Managing Director, Rodrigo de Rato, to resign in October 2007 opens up an opportunity for change to occur in the selection process for his successor. The opportunity for change in the governance of the Bretton Woods Institutions that was missed by the recently continued practice of selecting the World Bank President on the basis of a nomination by the United States must not be missed by the IMF in its selection of the next IMF Managing Director.

This change should reflect the principles of openness, consensus, transparency, and merit-based selection of the heads of both the World Bank and the IMF.

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Making Globalization Work for Least Developed Countries

Address by Benjamin Mkapa, the former Tanzanian president and the Chairperson of the South Centre board, to the UN Ministerial Conference, Istanbul, 9 July 2007

...In my view, the declining support from the international community provides us with the opportunity for a sober reflection on the appropriateness of our “aid dependent” development strategies. It may be time for developing countries, including LDCs to “empower” themselves through greater economic nationalism and self reliance, as we increasingly see in Asia and Latin America, in order to better manage the effects of globalization and to be a more proactive participant in that reality.

Developing and least developed countries, if they are to succeed in their war on poverty, must demand that a supportive international economic environment be built.

Benjamin Mkapa: Country-based policies are best

Benjamin Mkapa, the former Tanzanian president and the Chairperson of the South Centre board, writes in the East African (Nairobi) that Africa’s poorest countries should develop policies to suit their unique circumstances to replace policies imposed on them by their developed country counterparts. Such policies would enable world’s poorest countries to benefit from globalisation because “how governments manage the country’s internal affairs determines the extent to which their people benefit from globalisation and are protected from its negative effects.
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