Greater Coherence in Global Economic Policymaking: Progress and Prospect

Abstract

In concluding the Uruguay Round Trade Negotiations in 1994, the drafters of the Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organisation (the WTO Agreement) instructed the WTO to “cooperate, as appropriate, with the International Monetary Fund and with the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and its affiliated agencies” with a view to achieving greater coherence in global economic policymaking, which constitutes one of the five core functions of the WTO. In pursuit of this objective, the ministers also adopted the Declaration on the Contribution of the World Trade Organisation to Achieving Greater Coherence in Global Economic Policymaking (Coherence Declaration). In accordance with this Coherence Declaration, the Director General of the WTO is invited to “review with the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund and the President of the World Bank, the implications of the WTO’s responsibilities for its cooperation with the Bretton Woods institutions, as well as the forms such cooperation might take, with a view to achieving greater coherence in global economic policymaking”. The final result was two formal agreements: one concluded between the WTO and the International Monetary Fund (the IMF) and the other concluded between the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Development Association (the World Bank).