The Hindu : National : Revamp of international institutions should reflect rise of India, says Gordon Brown

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Revamp of international institutions should reflect rise of India, says Gordon Brown

Special Correspondent

“It is making powerful contribution to world economy; no company can be truly global unless it has operations based in India”

— Photos: Rajeev Bhatt, R.V. Moorthy

An eventful visit: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his British counterpart, Gordon Brown, exchange documents after signing an agreement in New Delhi on Monday.

NEW DELHI: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Monday shared his vision of a new global society pegged to the structural revamp of international institutions of the Cold War era — the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the United Nations — as also the G-8 into dynamic entities to address the problems of the globalised world.

Addressing Indian and British business leaders here at a breakfast meeting with Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath, he said: “Just as the problems bedevilling the economy and security of the environment are trans-national, the solutions must also transcend borders. Only with international institutions that support cooperation out of shared interest and predictability and accountability, states could consistently work jointly for the benefit of all.”

Their revamped structure, Mr. Brown said, should reflect India’s rising prowess in the global economy. “I support changes to the World Bank, the IMF and G-8 that reflect the rise of India and rise of Asia …We can and must do more to make our global institutions more representative,” he said.

India was making a powerful contribution to the world economy. “In the last 15 years, you have doubled your national income” and the country had “become the fourth largest producer of medicine and second largest developer of software in the world … No company can be truly global unless it has operations based in India.”

At right, Mr. Brown is seen with Vice-President Hamid Ansari after the British leader was conferred an honorary degree by Delhi University.

Alongside, pointing to the financial turbulence spreading out of the U.S., he felt that the World Bank and the IMF should prevent such crises rather than resolving them later. The IMF should focus on surveillance of the global economic and financial systems to help prevent crises, not just resolve them.

Emphasising the need for funding environmentally sustainable development, he said: “While we strengthen the World Bank’s focus on poverty reduction, its capacity and global reach should make it also a bank for the environment — ensuring that its development programmes provide an integrated approach to both poverty eradication and climate change.”

Mr. Brown proposed creation of a global climate change fund to finance low-carbon investment, adaptation and climate-resilient development in the poorest countries.

While calling for setting an ambitious agenda to prevent conflict and to stabilise and reconstruct failing and failed States, he said a strategy should be evolved to ensure rapid reconstruction on the ground once conflicts were over, and to combine traditional peacekeeping with stabilisation, recovery and development. Britain was prepared to utilise its expertise to help determine the requirements for verifiable elimination of nuclear warheads.

“I pledge that in the run-up to the Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference in 2010, we will be in the forefront of the international campaign to accelerate disarmament among possessor states to prevent proliferation and to ultimately achieve a world free from nuclear weapons.”

Britain, Mr. Brown said, would press for an early agreement to a new IAEA-led global system to help non-nuclear states acquire the new sources of energy they need, including through an enrichment bond. “But this offer must be made only in return for firm commitments to the highest non-proliferation standards,” he said.

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