The Importance of Diplomatic Immersion: Lessons from the IMF/WB Annual Meeting
By: Dael Vasquez
Money talks. It makes the world go round, it often costs too much, but in the end it's only a tool. Many a person has sought to understand money, most often with the aim of making more. As a young Canadian living through an obnoxious inflationary period, I find myself chasing after this very answer daily. However, a more pressing question was why money was necessary to begin with. Sure, arguments of efficiency - how money acts like a financial lubricant in the economy, facilitating trade - provides a compelling answer. However, Monetarists and Modern Monetary Theorists complicate the answer by arguing that money is so much more! While the former claim that money is fundamentally an economic stabilizer, the latter state that it is an apparatus which can be multiplied as needed to solve society's problems.
Although there are several more answers to this question - if one has the patience to seek them out - I needed to find a hub where ideas about money, its origin, and utility circulated in abundance. It was with this in mind that I turned to the International Monetary Fund and World Bank (IMF/WB) Annual Meeting. As the gathering place of the world's expert money movers, I looked forward to hearing their responses to my guiding question. Unfortunately, my hope was misplaced. At the end of each session, the most common answer I heard was that money was a credit given by the rich to the poor to help the poor cover their losses.
This answer was unsatisfactory, but it may also have been a product of the time at which I arrived at the Annual Meeting. Although there were multiple sessions spanning the length of the Meeting, each day was constantly revised. Having arrived on the weekend of October 14, the schedule was amended no fewer than three times, each deducting two or more events from the remaining days. This had the effect of limiting not only my exposure to a certain quantity of speakers at the AM, but also the intellectual diversity of those experts. Without fail, an overwhelming majority of interlocutors championed a neoliberal agenda, one which unsurprisingly yielded the unsatisfactory answers to my question about money. Perhaps I should've planned around this. After all, it's not surprising that weekends bring out conservatives.
Notwithstanding the ideological homogeneity of the speakers, not all was lost in Washington. The city's architecture and concentration of government buildings were a welcome sight. For a young professional, the high concentration of public offices visible within a couple of blocks revealed the variety of career options available to someone in my position. Like the colours on a palette, each building offered a choice with which to decorate the canvas of my life. Simultaneously, my proximity to the buildings and the stakeholders who worked within them rendered each position I saw attainable. Yet, I knew that this would not be the case for every occupation. Although my contact with diplomats and senior civil servants in Washington removed the preconceptions I had about them being preternatural individuals, they all demonstrated that they had truly earned their position and that they belonged there. This was most evident with the Deputy Head of Mission at the Embassy of Canada to the United States of America, Arun Alexander. Despite being an ordinarily affable man, his demeanour and intellect were extraordinary. He left me hanging on every word as he responded to each of the members in my delegation effortlessly and completely. My meeting with him was undoubtedly a highlight of this experience.
However, interactions such as these were only possible within the confines of Washington’s sandstone buildings. Contrasting with the city’s opulence were the ironies of America. The most visible of them during my stay was homelessness. The presence of vulnerable people left with no other recourse but to beg for a living in the world's nexus of political power created a dissonance in my mind that I still struggle to reconcile with. Not five minutes from the White House, sprawling tent cities would cover otherwise empty parks in the heart of Washington. It doesn’t take much to realize that America’s partiality towards market citizenship is the cause of this social decay. Yet, what is most stupefying is the apathy that complements the blight that Washington creates: not its homeless people, but the unanswered cause of homelessness itself.
It will be comforting for readers to know that despite the inaction of the American government on social problems, there are many in the international community who care about correcting human-made social ills. Few will approach a delegate without prompting, but with the right level of determination and social tact, networking among the international intelligentsia can yield welcomed results. For aspiring diplomats and public servants, attending a forum like the Annual Meeting will prove invaluable in the long run. However, I encourage such readers not to be disillusioned by how few attendees will be interested in networking with youth. As one of my fellow delegates put it: ‘Individuals at these events will only likely talk to you if you add value to them’. This is the great tragedy of working with high-level people. Nevertheless, it is only a matter of time before an awkward conversation leads to a fruitful one. Such was the case with us who, after numerous unreceptive introductions, finally found like-minded and amicable attendees - ambitious Australian youth delegates and a brilliant Canadian Fellow to the World Bank.
Apart from the networks that delegates can grow and work into their careers, the primary advantage of attending a conference like the Annual Meeting is knowledge building. The preparation that delegates undertake by researching the institution they will attend, learning about its history, current projects, key stakeholders, and implications on their host country is enough to equip anyone for a successful job application in a related field. However, throughout the conference, a delegate will be exposed to new policies, ideas, and career paths which entice them to explore further and amass even more knowledge to be applied in the professional setting of their choosing.
Compared to advocacy delegations, observer delegations to the IMF/WB Annual Meeting do not offer the best opportunities to make an impact on the ground nor to 'represent Canada’ in any meaningful capacity. However, they do offer delegates an opportunity to criticize the institutions whose meetings they attend as an insider. This is a privilege that should not be taken lightly as it equips young attendees with the credibility and experience to expose the flaws of these institutions from a position of relative power.
Delegates should also reflect on this opportunity when considering their role as representatives. Although they are not sent as envoys, delegates are still connected to their country of origin - Canada - while at their conference, be it a youth mission to the IMF/WB or another YDC excursion. Despite this connection, delegates may object to Canada's role within the multilateral forum. If this occurs, delegates must first ask themselves if their objections align with the priorities of Canadian youth. If not, their disapprobations should not become a focal point during stakeholder meetings or public engagements. However, if the reservations that delegates feel coincide with the zeitgeist of Canadian youth, then they must be to voice this opposition even at the cost of weakening the connection with the Canadian state and its foreign policy. After all, as youth delegates, we must put the interests of youth first.
