The world of today is very different from that of the 1940s, when many of our international institutions were created. The current global financial crisis has highlighted the pressing need for reform of these institutions, so as to better reflect the realities of the 21st century and effectively deal with evolving threats.

The symposium “Reforming International Institutions – Meeting the Challenges of the 21st Century”, organized by the United Nations University and the British Embassy in Tokyo,  was held on the afternoon of Wednesday, 21 January, at UN University Headquarters. UN University Rector Konrad Osterwalder opened the symposium by emphasizing that in order for international institutions to become more effective, more representative, and more legitimate, academia must play an essential role in providing analyses and recommendations to inform and facilitate reforms.

UK Minister of State Mark Malloch Brown

In a video message, UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) Minister of State Mark Malloch Brown expressed his hope that the push for reform sparked by the financial crisis would also bring about much-needed reforms of our collective security and governance apparatus, including the UN Security Council, and cooperation on development to ensure the Millennium Development Goals are met.

Simon Fraser, FCO Director-General for Europe and Globalisation, outlined the UK’s future vision for the G8 in a presentation entitled International Institutional Reform – The UK Government View. Participants then discussed the emergency London Summit in April, which is aimed at addressing the global financial crisis. Further presentations and discussion centred around the effectiveness of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, as well as the balance between wide representation and more-efficient but closed groups.

David Steven, policy analyst and strategic consultant at River Path Associates and Global Dashboard, presented scenarios for the year ahead. In a paper entitled 2009 — A Year for International Reform, he argued that leaders need to respond to global stress by becoming more ambitious; that they need to focus on long-term opportunities for cooperation; and that they must work towards integrated solutions instead of “imagining that a ‘global deal’ on finance could be divorced from the other big deals that must be struck on trade, security, climate, and other resource issues.”