Covering the first in-person IMF in three years

Phil joined the team from GlobalMarkets newspaper to help edit the coverage of the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. These were the first in-person meetings since 2019, as the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic forced them to be held virtually.

There was a strong feeling among organisers, visiting delegates and media and NGOs that the opportunity to meet and interact made the in-person meetings vastly superior to the virtual ones. That was especially important in October 2022 because of the confluence of a set of major crises including the food shortage, the fuel price surge, the wider inflationary spike, the debt problems facing many low- and middle-income countries and the war in Ukraine.

Phil helped edit the three daily papers that were printed live in Washington, DC, and distributed to the meeting venues and the hotels where delegates were staying. He also wrote two features looking ahead to the challenges facing the IMF and the World Bank.

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Writing and editing at the IMF/ World Bank annual meetings

Phil helped organise the coverage by the magazine GlobalMarkets of the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank that were held in October 2019 in Washington D.C.. GlobalMarkets is the new name for the magazine Emerging Markets that has covered the meetings of all the multilateral banks for a quarter of a century.

He wrote a number of features analysing key issues that came up at the meetings of the finance ministers and central bankers of the 187 member countries. The features looking at the outlook for the two institutions: the first examined the strategy of new World Bank President David Malpass and the impact he has made so far (here); the second looked at the other new leader – IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva – and what her tasks here.

He also wrote a number of news stories including: a pledge by new World Bank COO Axel van Trotsenburg to deliver results on the ground (here); a warning by World Bank chief economist Penny Goldberg on the threat deglobalisation poses to its poverty targets (here); and a story on the final stages of the negotiations to secure $80bn for the World Bank’s arm that operates in the poorest countries (here)

He was also heavily engaged in news planning, copy sub-editing and headline writing.