The world desperately needs a fairer economy

Two of the biggest contemporary names in development - the Director-General of the WTO, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and the PM of Barbados, Mia Mottley, have contributed a piece to the Guardian that promotes greater equity in development, arguing that the living standards of the world's poorest have been compromised by the twin threats of climate change and the current higher levels of global inflation.

They argue that it is the role of international organisations and the way they regulate global trade to ensure that any reimagining of globalisation is fairer.

Larry Elliot reflects here on last week's IMF meeting in Washington, noting that it's clear that we're not going to revert to the hyper-globalised, pre-pandemic world and that there are two issues that need to be addressed.

In the first place, there's a sense that the global trend rate of growth has fallen, in part, perhaps, because of undue focus on short-term growth and not more strategic, structural factors. Secondly, growing global inequality between rich and poor. It's thought if developed economies don't sign up to the Bridgetown Initiative which is portrayed as a 'Marshall Plan' for the developing world, then this gap can only grow to the detriment of the global economy.

Please read:

Age of globalisation is now the age of instability – and we need a plan