What is the future of multilateralism? The UK’s recent Strategy for International Development announced a reduction in funding for the World Bank and other multilateral institutions, instead indicating a move to bilateral spending that will ‘focus funding on UK priorities’. Yet universal challenges such as climate change and global health require coordinated international responses, linking local and national action with global level commitments and solidarities.
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Multilateral development banks have the potential to play a leading role in crisis response and global development; indeed, they exist for precisely this purpose. While these global institutions are well-placed to address the global and cross-border challenges we face – from the climate crisis to public health crises to violent conflict – it’s widely accepted that reforms are needed to fulfil this potential. What might this reform look like? How can large multilateral institutions work with local actors to build regional and global solidarities?
In this Sussex Development Lecture, Michael Woolcock, Lead Social Scientist in the World Bank’s Development Research Group, will discuss key findings from a recent project exploring solutions to an array of issues pertaining to the future of multilateralism and global development. Global problems require global solutions, yet each generation needs to make its own case for a renewed multilateralism – in our time, this means finding collective responses to environmental crises, rising inequalities, regional conflicts, and future pandemic threats.
Speaker
- Michael Woolcock, Lead Social Scientist in the World Bank’s Development Research Group and Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School
Discussants
- Babatunde Omilola, African Development Bank and UNDP
- Stephany Griffith-Jones, Central Bank of Chile
Chair
- Melissa Leach, IDS Director
How to watch
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