Once every three years the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank hold their annual meetings out of town. Instead of schlepping over to Washington, the gathering of finance ministers and central bank governors is hosted by a member state. Ever since the 2000 meeting in Prague was besieged by anti-globalisation rioters, the away fixtures have tended to be held in places that are hard to get to or where the regime tends to take a dim view of protest: Singapore, Turkey, Peru.
This year’s meeting will take place in a couple of weeks on the Indonesian island of Bali, where the IMF and the World Bank can be reasonably confident that the meetings will not be disrupted. At least not from the outside. The real threat no longer comes from balaclava-wearing anarchists throwing Molotov cocktails but from within. Donald Trump is now the one throwing the petrol bombs and for multilateral organisations like the IMF and World Bank, that poses a much bigger threat.
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