Multilateral development banks and global public policy networks: Speculations for the next century

The next 20 to 30 years will be a period of unprecedented and accelerating change as a result of two powerful forces - the advent of a radically different world economy, and the explosion of the world's population. As these forces are unleashed, the world's nation-states - weakened by their increasingly unhelpful territorial and hierarchical constructs - will struggle hard to keep up with changes. Sooner rather than later, new trans-national governance solutions will have to be implemented. One among several solutions is the adaptation, or even re-invention, of multilateral institutions to support global public policy in the 21st century.