Vannia Yalan is a staff writer and second-year MPA student.

The 2025 IMF–World Bank Annual Meetings brought together finance ministers, central bank governors, development experts, and civil society leaders from 190 countries to address the most pressing challenges facing the global economy. Held in Washington, D.C., from October 13-18, these meetings serve as the world’s premier forum for international economic cooperation, where policy decisions affecting billions of people take shape through dialogue, negotiation, and shared commitment to financial stability.

This year, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva captured the global mood succinctly: “Conditions are better than we feared, but worse than we need.” It was a reminder that while the world economy has proven more resilient than predicted, it still faces deep structural challenges ranging from inequality and debt sustainability to technological disruption and climate vulnerability.

Across multiple sessions I attended over five days, the central theme focused on how innovation should serve inclusion because growth that leaves people behind is unsustainable by design. This reflection explores four dimensions of that imperative: first, how financial integrity depends on cooperation between institutions and civil society; second, why human capital investment is both a moral and economic necessity; third, how digital payment systems can either unite or divide the global economy; and fourth, what rapid technological change demands from policymakers navigating an uncertain future.

Restoring Integrity Through Cooperation

On the first day of the meetings, October 13, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva hosted the Civil Society Townhall. The session focused on illicit financial flows (IFFs), one of the most corrosive challenges to economic development, which drain an estimated of $1 trillion annually from developing economies through money laundering, tax evasion, and corruption. The room was packed with representatives from non-governmental organizations, advocacy groups, and grassroots movements, all pressing the IMF to strengthen accountability in its lending programs.

Director Georgieva’s response was direct and substantive. She outlined the IMF’s updated Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Strategy, explaining that lending programs “must integrate measures to trace and prevent illicit flows.” She emphasized that Governance Diagnostic Assessments, tools designed to identify institutional vulnerabilities before they escalate into crises, “depend on collaboration with civil society organizations (CSOs)” to be effective. Indeed, CSOs are closer to communities, so they can identify vulnerabilities and determine the problem faster; sometimes even before crises emerge.

What struck me most was the acknowledgment underlying this exchange: transparency and legitimacy in global financial institutions depend not only on technical capacity but on meaningful engagement with governments, the private sector, and the communities most affected by policy decisions. The IMF cannot combat corruption alone; it requires partners who understand local contexts and can hold institutions accountable from the ground up.

Human Capital and the Economics of Inclusion

Throughout the meetings, participants from developing economies raised persistent concerns about how austerity measures often cut social spending in education and healthcare, disproportionately affecting women and marginalized communities. I watched as civil society representatives from Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America challenged the IMF to reconcile fiscal discipline with social equity.

Director Georgieva’s response reframed these concerns as macroeconomic imperatives, not merely moral ones. She emphasized the importance of investing in human capital, echoing the framework of the World Bank’s Human Capital Project, which views education and health not simply as social services but as productivity-enhancing investments that drive long-term economic growth. “We must monitor not just how much is spent,” Georgieva added, “but how well.”

This recognition carries particular weight in developing economies, where inequality in access to education perpetuates cycles of instability. Consider Nigeria, where despite holding significant economic position in Africa, over 20 million children remain out of school according to UNESCO data. This educational deficit doesn’t just represent a social challenge; it constrains economic potential, limits tax revenue, reduces innovation capacity, and perpetuates dependence on volatile commodity exports. When half a generation lacks foundational skills, the entire economy suffers reduced productivity, higher unemployment, and persistent poverty that no amount of infrastructure spending can compensate for.

The New Economy Forum: Designing for a Connected Digital Future

On October 16, the New Economy Forum (NEF) started, a specialized track within the Annual Meetings that explores how emerging technologies reshape economic policy. The forum consisted of a main plenary session and two intensive workshops; all centered on a critical question: how can digital transformation strengthen global cooperation rather than deepen existing divisions?

The Policy Frontier of Digitalization and AI

The NEF’s plenary panel, “Digitalization of the Economy and AI” brought together three finance ministers representing vastly different economic realities yet converging on a common challenge: how should governments adapt to exponential technological change? The panel featured Kyriakos Pierrakakis, Minister of National Economy and Finance of Greece; Dr. Kamal Shehadi, Lebanon’s Minister of State for Technology and AI; and Jürgen Ligi, Estonia’s Minister of Finance. 

Minister Pierrakakis captured the accelerating pace of transformation with striking clarity:

Your question… is what keeps us up at night. The rate of change is exponential and steeper than ever. When I was a student, we moved from Blockbuster to Netflix in about 15 years. Now, with OpenAI and large language models, that transition happens in months. And soon, in weeks.

His words reflected what many policymakers face: the traditional policy cycle, where legislation takes years to draft, debate, and implement, cannot keep pace with technologies that transform entire industries in months. This mismatch creates regulatory vacuums where innovation races ahead of accountability. 

Minister Shehadi pushed this reasoning further, envisioning a future where AI becomes structural to governance itself:

If I were to take a wager, I would say that my successor will be sitting in the Council of Ministers with at least half the portfolios run by artificial intelligence. (…) Much of these decisions will be data driven, whether there is a human being that is translating what the data says or an AI agent, the end result is the same.

His vision raises profound questions about the nature of democratic accountability. If algorithmic systems make resource allocation decisions, who bears responsibility when those systems produce unjust outcomes? How do citizens contest decisions made by opaque AI models? These aren’t hypothetical concerns; they’re already emerging as governments adopt predictive policing, automated benefit eligibility systems, and AI-assisted judicial sentencing.

Meanwhile, Minister Ligi offered Estonia’s experience as a counterpoint, demonstrating that digital governance can work when built on strong institutional foundations:

Unlike Lebanon, we didn’t have a scratch, we had a Soviet system to build a free world on, on nothing actually. And the legend said as well that we didn’t have money to build old-fashioned bureaucracy. I don’t know the calculations, but by now it’s estimated that we save 2 percent of GDP for the government thanks to the digitalization

Estonia’s digital governance model, developed after independence in 1991, includes digital identity systems, e-residency, online voting, and blockchain-based data integrity. The country’s success demonstrates that digital transformation, when designed with transparency and citizen trust as priorities, can enhance both efficiency and democratic participation.

The panel efficiently covered every single minister’s vision, but value was in the convergence of their concerns. Across three continents and dramatically different political contexts, these leaders recognized that digital reform is no longer optional; it is existential. Governments that fail to adapt will find themselves unable to deliver basic services, attract investment, or maintain citizen trust in an increasingly digital world.

The Power of Connection

Following digitalization implications, the workshop “Design Matters: The Power of Connected Digital Payments” brought together technical experts and policymakers to examine interoperability in payment systems. Divya Kirti, Senior Economist at the IMF, opened the session by highlighting that “connecting different payment networks can have a really big impact.” He walked us through lessons from India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI), a system that enables seamless transactions across different banks and payment providers, processing over 10 billion transactions monthly. The implications extend far beyond India as he argued that similar cross-network integration could enhance efficiency and access whether applied to stablecoin systems in the United States or digital euro initiatives in Europe.

Ritesh Shukla, CEO of NPCI International Payments Limited, provided a concrete example of this potential. He described how PayPal’s integration with UPI will connect 35 million merchants to India’s payment network, “creating value on both sides” by linking small businesses in India to new consumer markets globally while giving international users seamless access to Indian services. This isn’t merely about technological efficiency; it’s about whether a street vendor in Mumbai or a freelancer in São Paulo can participate in the global digital economy on equal footing.

Yet the session also surfaced significant concerns. Kenneth Gay, Chief Fintech Officer at the Monetary Authority of Singapore, cautioned against fragmentation, the risk that different payment systems develop incompatible standards, creating digital borders that mirror and reinforce economic divisions. “The risk of fragmentation is very real,” he warned. “What we need is to lean toward interoperability, to align stakeholders through good governance and public–private partnerships.”

His point strongly connected to inclusive innovation because when payment systems cannot communicate across borders, the result is exclusion. Imagine a migrant worker who cannot send remittances home because their digital wallet is incompatible with their family’s payment system, or a small exporter who loses business because cross-border transaction fees remain excessively high. The lesson was clear: technology alone cannot guarantee inclusion. Coordination, governance, and intentional design should guide innovation, or digital tools will simply replicate existing inequalities in new forms.

The Broader Meaning of the Annual Meetings

Taken together, the Annual Meetings offered a compelling vision for how multilateralism can evolve in a world of accelerating change. Financial integrity, digital inclusion, and technological preparedness are no longer separate policy agendas; they are deeply interconnected. As Director Georgieva emphasized, countries facing high debt burdens “can only grow out of debt” by fostering conditions for sustainable growth: strong institutions, transparent governance, and inclusive human capital development.

But beyond the policy frameworks and technical discussions, what the meetings ultimately underscored was the human dimension of international cooperation. A moment that captured this for me came during an informal conversation between sessions, when a civil society representative from Kenya described how mobile money systems had transformed her community’s access to credit, enabling women entrepreneurs to build businesses that were previously impossible without traditional banking relationships. Her story reminded me that behind every policy debate about payment interoperability or governance frameworks are real people whose economic opportunities and dignity hang in the balance.

From combating corruption to connecting payment systems, progress depends less on ideological alignment than on trust, practical problem-solving, and sustained dialogue across differences. For those of us working within or alongside international institutions, these meetings reaffirmed that the purpose of policy extends beyond managing systems; it must ultimately serve people. Our responsibility is to ensure that digital progress translates into social progress, that technological innovation expands rather than concentrating privileges, and that the architecture of global cooperation remains grounded in equity and human dignity.

Left to right: Vannia Yalan, Ambassador of Greece, Ambassador of Lebanon, Moderator, Ambassador 

Photos by Vannia Yalan

The views expressed in Policy Perspectives and Brief Policy Perspectives are those of the authors and do not represent the approval or endorsement of the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration, the George Washington University, or any employee of either institution.