Emerging economies

The head of the European Center for International Political Economy likens the situation to the rise in influence of G20 nations in relation to the G8.

“Developing countries today represent such a big part of the world economy – that means every time that world leaders need to get together in order to flesh out new policies these countries also need to be at the table. If you look, for instance, at economic growth in 2012, 75 percent of world economic growth is going to come outside ”the old West”—to use that phrase,” he said.

The growth has occurred in both Asian and African countries.

Erixon said, “Having a good understanding about the particular predicaments of developing countries will be even more important in the future than it has been in the past. Because whoever is going to lead the institution, they’re going to be challenged by a landscape of developing countries, which differ from each other much more than they did in the past. What we’ve seen in the past 10 years is extremely rapid economic development in some countries, while we have seen very poor economic development in other countries.”

Hebelieves developing countries will probably call on the next World Bank president to streamline credit and loan procedures and to make the bank less bureaucratic.

“The second thing, he said, “ is to find a good balance between the fast rising countries in East Asia and in some parts of Africa and countries that have not jumped on the band wagon of high economic growth yet. And these types of countries are going to need entirely different help from the World Bank. And finding that balance is going to be a difficult one, but it’s a critical one.”