The managing director of the International Monetary Fund said she was "available" for a second five-year term at the helm of the Washington-based financial institution, shortly after receiving the backing of European finance ministers, AFP reports.
"I'm not running to force people to elect me, I'm making myself available to serve if people want me to serve," IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said in a video interview ahead of her speech in the British city of Cambridge.
"I would bring to this job the determination to have the Fund be an institution that leans forward in solving the most challenging problems we face," she said.
Those challenges include boosting productivity and growth "so that more people have a better chance," addressing elevated post-pandemic debt levels, and making the IMF "more inclusive and more representative so that it has the confidence of our members and people," she added.
The IMF officially launched the selection process for its next head on Wednesday, a day after European Union (EU) finance ministers backed Georgieva.
The EU backing could prove crucial for Georgieva, as a European has run the Fund since its founding in 1944 due to a controversial, informal agreement that in the past a European national ran the IMF and an American the World Bank.
Given the enormous influence that Europe exerts over the nomination process, the EU announcement sharply reduces the likelihood of success for other individuals whose names are associated with the role, such as Pascal Donoghue, Ireland's public spending minister.
The IMF has said it wants the process completed by the end of April, well before the end of Georgieva's current term on September 30, 2024.
In her speech at King's College, Cambridge, Georgieva looked at the longer-term challenges and opportunities facing the global economy and made the case that policymakers need to fix "maintaining high economic equality".
In her prepared remarks, she highlighted three priority areas for long-term investment: climate, artificial intelligence, and boosting capital flows in Africa.
In her speech, Georgieva said unchecked climate change "will be catastrophic" for the planet, but insisted that "decisive political action" this decade can help the world achieve a carbon-neutral economy.
"I realise we are going through a very difficult period, we have been hit by shock after shock after shock," Georgieva said ahead of the speech.
"So when decisions are made about resource allocation, it's at a particularly difficult time," she said.
"My goal in the Fund's work is to provide the best recommendation on how to balance these different pressures and how to do it in the most responsible way for future generations," she added.
Georgieva said the IMF had been "surprised" by the resilience of global growth this year, despite the decision by many central banks to raise interest rates to tackle inflation.
In the US, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates to a 23-year high as it battles inflation that remains above its long-term target of two per cent.
"Economies with strong fundamentals are performing better," she said, adding, "That goes for Africa as well."
"We see that in Africa some economies are doing quite well because of strong fundamentals, because of investing in the right things, investing in people, investing in quality infrastructure, investing in the digital economy," she said.
"And what we're asking the IMF to do is to use our engagement, our programs and our policy commitments to drive that fundamental progress, building a strong foundation for the future in Africa."
Georgieva said the challenge for the IMF was to bridge the gap between "strong" African economies such as Ivory Coast and Benin and some other countries on the continent.
"What we want is to bring Africa up so that the performance gap between the best and worst performing countries shrinks," she said. / BGNES
