1980s and 1990s ) could be a way of making sdrs more attractive as reserve assets and expanding the sdr ’ s role as a unit of account in trade and finance. the ultimate goal would be to create the conditions for an expanded role of the sdr in the international monetary system. to jump - start this process, public authorities could undertake coordinated actions such as issuing sdr - denominated debt, helping create market infrastructures and providing legal certainty. – i believe that in order to have a chance to work in practice, such actions would need to be part of a long - term strategy supported by a strong political commitment. my understanding of the experience of the private ecu is that a key factor of its success was the link to the long - term process of european monetary integration, which provided not only a legal, economic and institutional frame of reference but also a strong political constituency. by analogy, making the sdr a credible reserve asset and unit of account for both official and private agents would probably require a commitment to eventually transform it into something more than a basket, i. e. a currency in its own right. as we know, we are still very far from having a broad consensus on such a prospect. bis central bankers ’ speeches 4. the reform of the international monetary system : the role of the g20 and of the imf to summarize, we have an international monetary system that lacks an effective mechanism for ensuring the mutual consistency of national policies. the costs of this in terms of distortions and instability are already evident, and will probably be further exacerbated as the world becomes more integrated economically and financially. on top of this, as we move toward a multipolar system we will need even greater cooperation to manage this process and contain the risk of instability. indeed, the need to review the functioning of the international monetary system was put on the g20 agenda early on after the crisis. following some bold g20 statements, there was even hope that a “ new bretton woods ” system could be shaped under the aegis of the g20. in this spirit, a group of former senior policy - makers assembled by michel camdessus, alexandre lamfalussy and tommaso padoa - schioppa ( the palais - royal initiative ) chose to emphasize in their report the great urgency of tackling the reform of the international monetary system, and proposed a number of significant and far - reaching changes in the current arrangements. but despite

board to strengthen the resilience of banks and financial intermediaries and to discourage excessive risk taking ; the implementation of the wto ’ s doha development agenda to preserve an open, multilateral and rule - based trading system ; the commitment to establish a new multilateral reserve asset – hopefully with a more appealing name than the sdr – to become the “ safe asset ” that financial markets demand and that could be the anchor and the standard of a more stable international monetary system. is this agenda “ politically acceptable ” to the g20 leaders? probably not, but it may become soon the only available alternative to the present slow - moving, incremental approach to reform, if they want to prevent more serious troubles for the world monetary and financial system and for the world economy. bis central bankers ’ speeches