From the Hudson Institute, this is an hour and a half. Good day and welcome to the Hudson Institute and thank you for showing up for this panel on Multilateral Institutions. Indispensable or irrelevant to global peace and prosperity. I will be the moderator. Am Liselotte Odgaard i put together this panel which i think is on a key issue in d. C. And globally indeed. It is talked about a lot although there are not that many panels about the topic around town. I look forward to this discussion. I mentioned to come up for the past couple of years, there has been a lot of debate about Multilateral Institutions and on chinas influence and how that is quickly growing and leading to changes in the fundamental rules of the since to two nations and also giving rise to alternatives to the old ones. And one question that arises the is does that make institutions that we already have counterproductive to preserving a liberal world order when authoritarian states rise within the institutions . And partly take over responsibility for them . Another key issue is the one on fragile states. They seem to be continuously bogged down in poverty, lack of education, etc. Although we have spent decades on development aid, peacekeeping, etc. From the institutions such as world bank and the u. N. Does that mean the institutions have failed to contribute to raising basic individual welfare and quality of life . There is also the issue of the human rights situation in li andies such as molly ana south sudan. To be disastrous despite u. N. Peacekeeping. Does that mean these instruments have failed . Does the multilateral inns to to share in not do its job well enough . Have they instead become money machines for corrupt governments and for employees instead of assisting the civilians that they pretend to serve . Issuesre some of the key that i hope we can talk about today. Few people seem to think the institutions should be less than they are. Some demand pragmatic reforms while others call for wholesale transformation and yet, others call for total destruction of the global framework that we have now of Multilateral Institutions. And this panel will address the pros and cons of conserving the system of Multilateral Institutions at a time when we ,ave fluctuating alliances trade wars, rising authoritarianism, and other developments that fundamentally affect how they work. We have four distinguished speakers to address these issues. First, we have Kathryn Lavelle of worlde professor affairs at case western reserve university. She has written numerous books and international on International Organizations and u. S. Politics and her most recent book is called the challenges of multilateralism. It reviews the history of domestic and International Politics that have helped or hindered global cooperation. To this, she had been a fellow at the Woodrow WilsonInternational Center for scholars and she also held numerous other positions as she worked as staff at the House Committee of financial services. Duboise have eli whitney who is currently at the law firm but prior to this decision coming he served as executive director for the world bank from 2000 seven until 2010. Mr. Dubois has extensive experience in Major International transactions. With respect to wtos and proceedings and regional trade integration. Earlier this month on the 13th of november, he served as a witness at the u. S. House committee on the financial hearing on Multilateral Institutions. Misztal. Have blaise a fellow here at hudson. Most recently, he served as the executive director of a transcript of a task force on fragile states which is a congressionally mandated project. Prior to that come he was bipartisan the policy centers Security Program where he managed a team responsible for researching and developing policy recommendations concerning a variety of National Security issues including a ron and it iran and its nuclear program, countering extremism and state fragility. , we havebut not least a speaker who took up his position as ambassador from denmark to the United Nations. Position,ing up that the abbasid are served as state secretary for development in the ministry of foreign affairs. Appointment, he served as ambassador to indonesia and was also accredited to ease to more or and papa new guinea. And before that come he worked for the undp. The panel will spend about an the issue of Multilateral Institutions and after that, we will open it up for questions from the audience. Kathryn, youart have just written a book on multilateral in dictations. That is about to come out or has already come out i think. Can you briefly describe how you see the role of Multilateral Institutions in todays world order where we had these fluctuating alliances and trade wars rising, authoritarianism . Do these trends mean the institutions are counterproductive to preserving a liberal world order . Are they for example taken over by authoritarian regimes with little respect for basic liberal market and human rights principles . Kathryn lavelle thank you. And thank you for that question and thank you for inviting me and having me here today at the Hudson Institute. It is been a privilege to meet my copanelists. I look forward to the discussion. I think you are raising really good questions but thats the book is forthcoming and the book really looks at we would say it takes the long review of multilateralism in the history of these organizations. , andyou take a longer view by longer i mean and of napoleonic wars, when you go back that far, you see so many things that are the same and a few that are different. Those that are the same are the nationalist tendencies. The controversies about the organizations themselves. Those have always been there. When i look at the history of the organizations it is that they have been intermingled with the history of industrial revolution. As scientific progress has a vault, states have had to figure goingys to handle what is on but also the International Community has had to understand that. If you want to think about Something Like an environmental issue, in the issue of migratory birds was very important. And in health, what was important was grappling with cholera on the trade routes with the british empire. The problems encountered in the 1800s had to do with a lot of the science going on. We were talking about telecommunications. Madison had to come to terms with what caused cholera and how to treat. Once you could get that agreement, you could figure out what nations could handle and what the International Community would handle. We all know as students of International Relations that the then World History has had intermittent episodes of hegemonic war. If you want to look at it from a more optimistic side, it in some of the darkest hours, people have tried to figure out what to do with multilateralism. Would have that instinct as world war ii was winding down to figure out what i would do but that has been the history. To the present era, the way i look at the problem is the scientific progress has continued. Two big things have happened since the 1960s the digital revolution. Ofare aware in realtime what is going on. And massive advances in global health. The World Community trying to come to terms with how those benefits are going to be distributed and who will pay for them. As welfare systems have a vault. We know the institutions foster the National Welfare system but coming to terms with that now is a problem. Challenges these organizations confront. I dont know if i would say it is whether or not they need to go they will have to adapt to the realities of the problem of global immigration and taxpayers in advanced industrial democracies. But there is also reason to be somewhat helpful that they have been able to adjust in the past and probably will be able to do so in the future. Liselotte odgaard thank you. , you have been executive director of the world bank and a lot of contemporary critics of these institutions point two and imbalanced between the financial contributions made by Member States on the one hand and then the actual tangible benefits of Multilateral Institutions for a common interest in prosperity and stability. Can you tell us from your theseence to what extent Multilateral Institutions such as the world bank are more ending up being two goals corrupt governments or authoritarian governments than they actually help the people they pretend to serve . Thank you and thank you for inviting me. A pleasure to be here today particularly amongst such great company. Cannot that we a a definitive judgment on Multilateral Institution like the World Bank Without remembering how one how it is one player in a larger landscape. And the landscape includes the countries themselves that are clients of the bank. If we do take a longer view, i think you could say that we have made huge progress on this planet. We brought more people out of poverty in the last 2530 years than in all the rest of human history. To me is a fairly remarkable measure. And i think that the multilaterals have made significant contributions to that. They also have accumulated a lot of knowledge about the Development Process and disseminate that around the world. When i wasesting testifying two weeks ago up on the hill, i got any number of does chinabout why continue to borrow from the bank . The primary answer there is not because they need the money, obviously, but because they do value the Development Expertise that the bank has. That may beg the question of why they are borrowing . I personally think it is time for them to graduate and they can do what saudi arabia does which is pay for whatever knowledge, Technical Assistance that they want as they go. On the other hand, if you understand anything about the political model of at least the in the World Bank Group and i have to point out there are five parts of the World Bank Group and each one has its own separate financial model. And you need to understand those models before you Start Talking further. Side which isrd where china arrows, there is a large component of the annual budget that comes from the interest earned on the loans. Repay said china everything tomorrow, there would be a big hole in that budget. There is always room to cut budgets of institutions like this and have a nose, when i was u. S. Executive director, we were one of the budget hawks constantly and consistently. We were on the audit committee. Always trying to improve things. Would benk a phaseout appropriate here in terms of the institutional approach. Also other aspects of Multilateral Institutions which i think are important to remember. Lot ofn provide a knowledge about Public Financial Management. Not learneds are instantly by every country around the world that on the whole, thankfully there has been a lot of progress. One aspect of the Public Financial Management is the management of trust funds. And i think i would submit to you that perhaps one of the more successful multilaterals has been the global fund fighting disease. The u. S. Has appropriated four times as much money on an annual basis to the global fund as it has to the world bank. So the world bank though manages those trust funds. Itself a valuable service. Aboutwer your question capture and so forth, there is politics at the world bank. It is a little bit like casablanca. I make im surprised there is gambling going on here. And it is constant. I had a question when i testified two weeks ago about how it could possibly be that one of the managing directors of the world bank today is from china and he has responsibility for ethics. And my response was he is an International Civil servant. If he is not doing his job, the president can fire him. These are things that need to be dealt with. There is a legitimate question as raised by our moderator about whether these institutions are captive or just within the political economy of different countries. There more deserved Civil Servants or a lead as opposed to other people in the country . I think you left out one dimension in your question which is the entire development community. When i went to a country in africa, on one of my trips with the world bank, i asked how much was their budget . And he said 80 million a year. And i asked how much of it was earmarked . Of 80said 78 million million. Your marks for the beltway bandit around here who have their contracts every year they are at a disadvantage to the head of the u. K. Development agency because that country had a discretionary budget of 10 million available to him. When the president of the country had some problem he hads help with, the u. K. 10 million while the u. S. Had 2 million. There are captives. I also look at a loan for a road project in niger. It was 8 million loan. And if you look way back on page 57 in the annexes, you found that 500,000 of that was to purchase four toyota land cruisers. As in any political situation, people whose interests are in play. To the point of capture there are alternative organizations. Think of the organization that was started by the brits. They were frustrated that the u. S. Congress took so long to approve a quota increase at the imf. It took them five years. So they formed their own monetary organization and their own new bank called the brex bank. Look at what they did in the monetary arrangement. It has a headline number of x but if you were an individual country and you wanted to access the monetary facilities of this new arrangement, you can only with no questions asked. The other 70 required an upper imf program. Even the brits are depending on another multilateral to establish important criteria and so forth. I think i will leave it there. And we can hear from other panelists. No black orhere is white answer to the questions being asked. Liselotte odgaard thank you. Lisa thanks. You have done a lot of work on fragile states. You arguably, fragile states seem to be continually bogged down in poverty, lack of education, all of the usual Development Problems despite years of spending from the world bank, also the United Nations. Does that mean they have failed to contribute to raising basic individual welfare and qualityoflife or can they still be helpful . Do helpful . Do they need reform or can we use them as they are . Thank you for putting together this event on this important topic. Thank you to the audience for joining us on this discussion. Im honored to join this distinguished group of panelists and flattered that you think i can solve a fragile states question in five minutes or however long i have been allotted. Let me just give context as to why i think it is important to think about the problems of fragile states and the question of multilateralism, and that is both because the problems surrounding fragility are particularly problems that are wellsuited to or driven by the source of issues that Multilateral Institutions are meant to solve. Something like 90 of all conflicts in the world are happening in fragile states. We know that the United Nations are devoted to trying to minimize conflict. Increasingly, poverty is occurring in fragile states. 10 years ago, it was Something Like 15 of the worlds poor lived in fragile states. 10 years from today, it is going to be 60 of the worlds poor living in fragile states. Fragility is an increasingly important issue. Fragility is also an issue that matters to all of us. The ability of Multilateral Institutions to address fragility is something we should care about, whether it is problems like the spread of extremism and terrorism into fragile states, civil conflicts that displace hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, causing refugee and migration flows that have impacts well beyond their borders, whether it is the spread of pandemics like most recently, ebola in fragile states that like institutions to deal with those issues on their own, causing them to become global and Transnational Health threats. Fragility is going to become a major driver of National Security issues in the decades to come, so it is important to think about how we deal with it. I would say that thus far, the record of the Multilateral Institutions has not been great, partly because the emphasis on fragility has not been there, even within our own u. S. National security policy, fragility is a relatively recent phenomenon. We are thinking about failed states up until maybe a decade ago, whether that is somalia, the classic example or assumption going into the first post9 11 phase. Afghanistan and failed states and were the sanctuaries rors of terrorism this idea of the fragility of states that haven