India’s prime minister Narendra Modi has called for the mandate of multilateral lenders such as the World Bank to be expanded, as the IMF’s managing director demanded an increase in the lender’s resources by the end of the year.Efforts to boost the balance sheets and reform the governance of the Washington-based multilateral lenders have been a central issue at the Group of 20 summit in New Delhi this weekend, partly as a means for western states to curry favour with developing nations amid geopolitical divisions over Russia’s war against Ukraine.
“We need to expand the mandate of multilateral development banks,” Modi said during the third leaders’ session of the New Delhi leaders’ summit, which began on Saturday. “Our decisions in this direction should be immediate and effective.”
Despite geopolitical tensions and discord over Ukraine, Indian officials say they have advanced an ambitious financial agenda during New Delhi’s rotating presidency of the group of large economies, including reform of multilateral banks, regulation of cryptocurrencies and the framework for restructuring heavily indebted countries’ debt.