How to make the G-8 'club' a little less cozy

In the next 50 years, the world's population is projected to increase from 6.2 billion to 9 billion, with probably all the increase coming in the developing world while the number of people in rich countries remains at roughly 1 billion.

"The current [world] system is inadequate," says Colin Bradford Jr., a fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "There is a big political need to enhance diversity and make the system much more democratic."

He and Johannes Linn, another Brookings scholar, propose replacing the G-7 and G-8 with the G-20. Added to the G-7 countries would be Russia (already in the G-8), Australia, and 10 emerging nations - Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Turkey. They suspect that merely taking China into the club would delay going to a fairer and more balanced G-20 system.

The idea of giving the G-20 a bigger role in world governance has the support of Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. He raised the topic with Mr. Bush during a visit to Washington in April. Bush was "agreeable" if any G-20 sessions are kept informal, Mr. Bradford says.

Notwithstanding, there is much doubt that the G-20 will replace the G-8 or a G-9 anytime soon. The G-20 might be asked to tackle specific problems facing the world - water, farm subsidies, and so on - and meet every two years.

Mr. Martin's Liberal Party faces a national election June 28. Fate of the G-20 proposal may hinge on the party's victory.

The G-8 got its start in 1975, when the international economy, trade, finance, and commerce were dominated by the US, Japan, and a few European nations. Their leaders, note economists Robert Hormats and Jim O'Neill, "called the shots on trade negotiations, currency realignments, and most other international economic matters."

The leaders of what were then the six major powers got together to forge a strategy to overcome the recession caused by the Arab oil embargo after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.

The problem of an outdated system of governance also afflicts the International Monetary Fund and its sister institution, the World Bank. At present at the IMF, Europe has at least nine executive directors and 73 percent of the vote, far more than the US. The remainder of the world has little clout. Belgium has a 52 percent greater vote than huge, populous Brazil.

Voting reform has been on the agenda for at least two years.

But it is a zero-sum game, says Ariel Buira, director of the G-24, a group of developing countries within these institutions. If the voting power were reshuffled to better reflect the real economic picture in the world, some nations would lose out - and they are resisting this loss of prestige and power.

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