www.weltwirtschaft-und-entwicklung.org/cms_en/wearchiv/042ae699cc0dd1001.php

The Germany based World Economy & Development takes a look at the meetings of the World Bank and the IMF after the change in IMF leadership - the two mainpoints are:
More weight for the South (read the emerging economies)?

The current discussions about quota review and voting rights reform are equally unspectacular. Since almost no country is willing to accept a reduction in its voting shares, a reapportionment in favour of the developing countries could only be reached by a quota increase. But even the most ambitious scenario for a quota increase currently discussed would only reduce the industrialised countries voting shares from 60.6% to 58.3%. A quota increase of 12.5%, as currently proposed by the G-20 troika (Brazil, South Africa, Australia) would offer leeway to shift the voting proportion by 2-3% in favour of the developing countries—too little to remove the legitimacy deficit in the long term.

Possibly therefore, Strauss-Kahn World Economy & Development introduced the proposal for a double majority in addition to quota reform, both in a Wall Street Journal article (>>> My Vision for the IMF) and in his inaugural presentation to the IMF board. According to this proposal important decisions have to be ratified by majorities of both creditors and debtor countries. The proposal, long favoured by NGOs (>>> Shifting the debate: A double majority for the IMF) and even practiced by some international organisations (e.g. the Montreal Protocol and Global Environmental Facility—GEF), would have potential to create a genuine North-South balance in the Fund. The only catch for this is that it could only be introduced with the consent of the USA and Europeans, who currently dominate the fund. And they have just made it clear that they are not ready to forsake their established privileges.

Retreat from the LICs (that is the low-income countries)?

The controversial question remains, what is the future mandat of the IMF in low-income countries (LICs), after being less and less welcome in emerging economies? In the past years, there has been a growing chorus of those whose opinion is that the Fund should generally withdraw from the poorest countries because it simply lacks the expertise to combat poverty. Support for this position was articulated last April even by a study of the IMF Independent Evaluation Office. Among other things it was found that the additional development assistance that flowed to Sub-Saharan Africa since the beginning of the decade was not used to combat poverty on account of the IMF’s macroeconomic and budgetary stipulations. Instead it was diverted primarily to service internal debt or to expand international currency reserves.

Therefore NGOs now demand in a letter [33 KB] to the incoming Managing Director, that the IMF must change its policy so that the increase in spending for education, health and combating AIDS is no longer prevented. Strauss-Kahn made it quite clear that the conditions for IMF loans should be further reduced and that one must ask what is really indispensable here. The “Frenchman” (Strauss-Kahn), however, is insisting to maintain IMF’s engagement in the poorer countries.

Even here the new IMF boss does not start from scratch. The review of the IMF’s role in low-income countries has already been introduced by de Rato as a main item in the Fund’s “Medium-term Strategy”, which aims to better integrate these countries into the world economy in future. In this context, the IMF and World Bank have long been working to prepare a joint strategy. This strategy is to have been cast in a Joint Action Plan of the Bank and the Fund at the coming Annual Meeting.