South African President Jacob Zuma, and his daughter Phumzile, are greeted by Royal Canadian Mounted Police as they arrive in advance of the G8 and G20 Summit, Thursday, June 24, 2010, at Pearson International Airport in Toronto.
Africa's lone voice at the Group of 20 summit is pushing for reforms to two key bodies as his continent seeks "a just international financial and economic order."
South African President Jacob Zuma will urge world leaders to give emerging economies more heft at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Mr. Zuma, speaking Thursday in Toronto, emphasized that changes in both the voting structure and leadership of these institutions will be crucial in ensuring a more stable and equitable financial infrastructure.
"The developing world has an equal right to run these institutions," Mr. Zuma said at a forum hosted by the Corporate Council on Africa, in partnership with the Canadian Council on Africa.
Africa's recent economic success is "proving Afro-pessimists wrong," Mr. Zuma said. Sub-Saharan Africa's growth rate is surpassed by only China and India. More than 40 African countries had a GDP growth of more than 4.5 per cent in 2009, while the United States and European countries struggled to break even.
The playing field has changed, and Africa "can not now be viewed only as a destination for development aid," Mr. Zuma said. "We should not create the impression that we have come cap-in-hand to ask for favours."
Reform of global financial systems will be a priority issue for many G20 members; China, India, and Brazil will join South Africa in arguing that their economic strength needs to be better reflected in the architecture of major institutions.
Leadership of the World Bank and the IMF has been dominated by Europeans and Americans. Many analysts see this strong Western influence and an imbalanced voting structure as having locked the institutions into patterns of aid and development which are now defunct.
The BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) declared in April that a more-diversified international financial system would make the global economy less prone to crises and more resilient. "The IMF and the World Bank urgently need to address their legitimacy deficits," they said in a joint report.
The voting structure in both institutions is weighted based on each country's financial contribution. The United States has 17 per cent of the vote in the IMF, while Japan is next with 6.4 per cent. China has 3.65 per cent of the voting power, less than France. India has only 1.88 per cent of total IMF votes. Major decisions in the IMF require an 85-per-cent majority, which effectively gives the U.S. the sole veto.
The World Bank has a similarly weighted voting structure, but this year agreed to increase the portion of votes allotted to China, India, Brazil, South Korea and Mexico.
The president of the World Bank has always been a U.S. citizen. Robert Zoellick, the current president, was nominated by George W. Bush in 2007. The current Director General of the IMF is Dominique Strauss-Kahn of France, a former finance minister.