proposed to make the twenty-first century “the century of develop-
ment for all,” while the World Summit emphasized the need “to
galvanize efforts towards poverty eradication.”^61
The convergence between the UN agencies and the Bretton Woods
institutions had been clearly manifested in June 2000 when the IMF,
the World Bank, the UN, and the OECD jointly signedA Better
World for All.^62 This groundbreaking document, itself the result of
decisions adopted at various UN conferences held throughout the
1990s, laid the foundations for the Millennium and the Monterrey
Declarations. After its publication, as Louis Pauly noted, collabor-
ation between the UN and the Bretton Woods institutions became
routinized.^63 A global version of Third Way politics then seemed to
be emerging.
The Bretton Woods institutions began to attribute more importance
than before to the social dimension of development. The World Bank
and the IMF, for instance, advocated higher levels of foreign aid and
“pro-poor” economic growth. This change of direction was parti-
cularly notable at the Bank, which redefined its official mission as
“working for a world free of poverty.”^64 Under the leadership of
James Wolfensohn (1995–2005), the organization also broadened its
understanding of poverty beyond traditional income measures, to
include dimensions such as health, education, the environment, and
political participation.^65 The following president of the Bank, Paul
Wolfowitz, maintained this anti-poverty orientation, even though
his association with American neoconservatism did not predispose
(^61) United Nations,Monterrey Consensus on Financing for Development,
New York, United Nations, 2003, p. 5 (www.un.org/esa/ffd/Monterrey/
Monterrey%20Consensus.pdf); and United Nations, “2005 World Summit
Outcome,” Resolution Adopted by the General Assembly, A/RES/60/1, New
62 York, October 24, 2005, p. 3 (www.unfpa.org/icpd/docs/2005summit_eng.pdf).
IMF, OECD, UN, and World Bank,A Better World for All, Washington, DC,
Communications Development, 2000 (www.paris21.org/betterworld/home.
63 htm).
Louis W. Pauly, “The United Nations in a Changing Global Economy,” in
Steven Bernstein and Louis W. Pauly (eds.),Global Liberalism and Political
Order: Toward a New Grand Compromise?, Albany, SUNY Press, 2007,
64 p. 105.
See http://www.worldbank.org.
(^65) James D. Wolfensohn and Franc ̧ois Bourguignon,Development and Poverty
Reduction: Looking Back, Looking Ahead, Washington, DC, World Bank,
2004, pp. 3–4 (www.worldbank.org/ambc/lookingbacklookingahead.pdf).
Twenty-first-century rapprochement 183