Multilateral Cooperation in a Multipolar World: What Can We Learn from Investment?

There is a growing risk that geoeconomic fragmentation will lead to real income losses across the world of about 2 percent of GDP, with the losses in the Middle East, Central Asia, and Africa more than twice those of advanced economies. In this context, multilateral cooperation is more important than ever to address the world’s growing challenges, which are transnational and beyond the capacity of any single country or organisation. This policy brief explores two recent examples of state and non-state actors being able to build cooperation in a fragmented world-the World Investment for Development Alliance (launched in May 2022), and the World Trade Organization Agreement on Investment Facilitation for Development that is about to be concluded. The brief will suggest some initial lessons from both to potentially increase G20 coordination and cooperation in other areas, arguing for the primacy of a facilitative approach (i.e. improvements in the system’s efficiency through better information, speeding up procedures, and lowering costs) in the context of significant policy divergence.