Finance ministers from various Commonwealth countries have called for a systemic reform of the global financial architecture to enhance access to development financing for vulnerable countries.
Their collective call for reform came at the Commonwealth Finance Ministers High-Level Working Group Meeting in Washington D.C. on 14 April 2023.
At the inaugural Commonwealth Finance Ministers High-Level Working Group Meeting held on the margins of the 2023 World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund (IMF) Spring Meetings, finance ministers discussed national fiscal policies, measures for financial sustainability, eligibility criteria for development finance and potential reforms required for a more equitable financial architecture.
In their call, ministers stressed that any reforms must increase funding and consider the realities of vulnerability when allocating support to help vulnerable countries invest in resilience and achieve sustainable development.
Rt Hon Patricia Scotland KC said there is need for synergy in tackling the ever rising challenges to humanity.
“Our world faces overlapping, interlinked and accelerating economic, security and environmental challenges. They entwine and accelerate to amplify existing inequalities, threatening stability, resilience and development prospects.
The working group meeting also gave ministers an opportunity to focus on the urgent need to influence the global financial architecture, which is still underpinned by fiscal rules and conditions deemed unfit to meet the needs of the current global economic landscape and overlapping challenges.
Eligibility criteria for accessing concessional finance are based on sole metrics of gross national income (GNI) per capita, which mostly disregards national vulnerabilities.
However, recent overlapping crises have exposed and provided evidence of countries’ susceptibility to external shocks. The traditional rules and governing conditions for access to international development finance are no longer relevant in this era of interlocked and overlapping crises.
