<p>This week&nbsp;<strong>Mark Leonard</strong>&nbsp;is joined by&nbsp;<strong>Mark Malloch-Brown</strong>. Mark is the&nbsp;former president of the Open Society Foundations,&nbsp;former&nbsp;head of the United Nations Development Programme, formerly&nbsp;UN&nbsp;secretary&nbsp;general Kofi Annan’s chief of staff, and&nbsp;former&nbsp;UN&nbsp;deputy&nbsp;secretary&nbsp;general. From 2007-2009 he&nbsp;joined&nbsp;the British government of&nbsp;prime&nbsp;minister Gordon Brown as minister responsible for Africa and Asia.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><br><p>Together,&nbsp;Mark and Mark&nbsp;discuss&nbsp;how the role and impact of the Bretton Woods&nbsp;institutions, such as&nbsp;the&nbsp;World Bank and IMF, have changed. How&nbsp;can&nbsp;these&nbsp;institutions adapt&nbsp;to the rough-and-tumble world of&nbsp;21st-century&nbsp;geopolitics—especially considering&nbsp;China’s increased&nbsp;support for&nbsp;the&nbsp;Asian&nbsp;Infrastructure&nbsp;Investment&nbsp;Bank&nbsp;and&nbsp;projections that&nbsp;Asia&nbsp;will&nbsp;hold 50% of global GDP by 205?&nbsp;</p><br><p>Is Mark Carney right that&nbsp;there is&nbsp;a rupture in the old order?&nbsp;How&nbsp;did&nbsp;the Bretton Woods&nbsp;institutions underpin&nbsp;the old order? Are&nbsp;the World Bank and IMF&nbsp;problematic and outdated?&nbsp;Is it possible to reinvent these&nbsp;institutions for&nbsp;a&nbsp;new era? Or&nbsp;is it better to work through new, more representative&nbsp;institutions?&nbsp;</p><br><p><strong>Bookshelf</strong>&nbsp;</p><br><p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/211179569-1929" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in History – and How It Shattered a Nation</a>&nbsp;by&nbsp;Andrew Ross Sokin&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><br><p><a href="https://www.bwi80.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Facing Up to the Future: Navigating Disruption, Building Trust</a>&nbsp;by Patrick Achi, Sri Mulyani&nbsp;Indrawati, Mark Malloch-Brown</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><a href="https://markmallochbrown.substack.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">News and reflections from Mark Malloch-Brown</a>&nbsp;by Mark Malloch-Brown&nbsp;</p><br><p><em>This&nbsp;episode&nbsp;was recorded on February&nbsp;6th&nbsp;2026</em>&nbsp;</p><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>