ISLAMABAD (The Thursday Times) — Pakistan has taken over the chairmanship of the Intergovernmental Group of Twenty-Four (G-24), with Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb calling for a more inclusive, fair and development-oriented global financial system.
Aurangzeb set out three priorities for Pakistan’s term, the Finance Division said on Sunday: putting development at the centre of global economic policymaking, strengthening the voice of developing economies in multilateral institutions, and reforming the international financial architecture.
“The future of developing economies is not peripheral to the future of the global economy. It is central to it,” he said. “Our task is to ensure that the immense potential of developing economies is not constrained by an international financial architecture that has yet to fully adapt to a changing world.”
Pakistan’s agenda will cover affordable and timely development finance, sustainable debt solutions, stronger global financial safety nets, climate resilience and mobilising more public and private capital. Aurangzeb called for fairer governance and greater participation in the Bretton Woods institutions, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, to reflect the needs of their members.
Drawing on Pakistan’s own stabilisation and reform, he said financial stability had to be aligned with long-term development, and that reforming economies needed enough financing and policy space to grow. Pakistan would work with G-24 members across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as the IMF and World Bank, he said, thanking outgoing chair Nigeria. “The true measure of our collective leadership will not simply be the strength of our voice, but the difference that voice makes.”
The G-24, formed in 1971, coordinates the positions of developing countries on international monetary and development finance issues, particularly at the IMF and World Bank.
