by Brian Wingfield and Deborah Orr 10.13.08, 6:00 AM
Forbes.com

Following a packed weekend of meetings here, many of the world's top economic officials are returning to their home countries Monday to deal with the next stage in the ongoing financial crisis.

Sir, If the International Monetary Fund is projecting that the world economy is now entering a major downturn in the face of the most dangerous shock in mature financial markets since the 1930s, and that “that global growth was likely to slow to 3.9 per cent growth in 2008 and 3 per cent in 2009, sharply down from 5 per cent growth last year” (“IMF forecasts global slowdown”, FT.com, October 8), then why is it still making i

Here’s a quiz question for all you international finance wonks out there. Who said this to the world’s press last week: “…we welcome monetary easing in the advanced economies...

A small number of civil society representatives from Africa were able to come to the IMF/WB annual meetings in Washington this year. But they were able to make two high-profile interventions.

As I was walking through the lobby of the Main Complex building of the World Bank yesterday, probably for the last time during these Annual Meetings, I saw that the Bank had created a series of huge self-promotional banners for the meeting. The closest to me was one that blared, "A Global Crisis Requires a Global Response." A sign of our times ...

I find it incredibly annoying. All these years the imposed policies of IFIs over developing countries were targeted to hard conditionalities that controled how much was invested in public health, education and development. The recipe advised no intervention of the State in the economy which should be [they insist] regulated naturally by the flow of capital in a liberalised economy.