Leadership of IMF and World Bank a joint responsibility of all members

ON Monday, a special court in France delivered an unusual verdict following the trial of IMF managing director Christine Lagarde over her role in a 400 million euro (S$605 million) government payout to a French businessman in 2008 when she was the country's finance minister.

The court found her guilty of negligence for failing to challenge the controversial payout, but imposed no punishment, not even a fine. Hours later, the IMF's executive board released a statement saying that it had "full confidence in the managing director's ability to continue to effectively carry out her duties". Ms Lagarde will thus get to keep her job. However, this unsavoury incident - not the first involving an IMF chief - will, and should, refocus attention on the issue of how the IMF's leadership is determined.

That the process for doing this is opaque and deeply undemocratic is now well known. Since the IMF's inception 70 years ago, every managing director, bar none, has been European, while every head of the World Bank has been American. This anachronistic model of leadership by tradition and convention has been widely criticised, especially in recent years, with the rising importance of emerging economies, particularly large ones such as China, India, Russia, Brazil, South Africa and Indonesia.