Launch of the Global Public Investment Expert Working Group

Global Public Investment is a new paradigm of International public finance for the 21st Century. It’s an idea numerous individuals have contributed to developing over recent years, myself included, and one - I think - whose time has come. Today marks a step change in the progress of Global Public Investment from a concept to a policy regime, with the launch of an international Expert Working Group whose mandate is to take the idea to the next stage of implementability.

To be sure, there are lots of international finance reform initiatives taking place at the moment: it’s a sign of the times we are living in that big, structural reforms like this are being actively considered. Really this is the first time in several decades - perhaps since Nixon took the idea of a multilateral SDR off the table at the start of the 1970s and the NIEO stuttered to a halt - that fundamental, not piecemeal, reforms are being discussed.

And let’s face it, these initiatives are long overdue. For those of us who have consistently called for a transformation in the way the international economic order is organised (see my 2015 book, The Political Origins of Inequality, for example), the upheavals caused by COVID-19 present an historic opening for change. It’s really a case of act now or forever hold your peace. I’m for the acting: but also for a form of action that is historically contextualised.

This is why, in collaboration with a rapidly growing group of scholars, activists, institutions, politicians and mobilisers from around the world, a core focus of the Global Public Investment project has been on making sure that our idea develops in a way most others are not: namely via public deliberation and a globally representative consensus. This is where the Expert Working Group comes in.

The purpose of the Expert Working Group is to take the basic framework of the idea for Global Public Investment and turn it into a concrete policy proposal for nation states and multilaterals alike. We’ve been lucky enough to secure a brilliant group of talented and social justice-minded individuals to take this work forward. And we have a nice send off from Helen Clark (former Prime Minister of New Zealand and UNDP administrator) to get things going.

I’ll be writing more about this process, and setting it in historical context, in a future post. But until then you can find out all you need to know about the idea behind Global Public Investment, Helen’s promissory words, and a host of other documents relating to the Expert Working Group at our new homepage for the Global Public Investment project. The homepage will also serve as a repository of our deliberations and developments going forward, so do check it out.