The multilateral institutions that shape global trade, lending, and development finance.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank were both established in 1944 at the Bretton Woods Conference. The IMF focuses on exchange rate stability and short-term balance-of-payments support (India famously borrowed from the IMF in 1991, pledging gold as collateral); the World Bank Group (IBRD, IDA, IFC, MIGA) focuses on long-term development financing.
The World Trade Organization, established in 1995 (succeeding GATT, 1947), sets rules for international trade, resolves trade disputes between members, and negotiates multilateral trade agreements. India has been an active — and often contentious — participant, especially over agricultural subsidies and food security stockholding.
The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), headquartered in Beijing and launched in 2016, and the New Development Bank (NDB) (the "BRICS Bank"), headquartered in Shanghai and launched in 2015, both fund infrastructure and development projects — seen partly as alternatives to the Bretton Woods institutions, with India as a founding member of both.
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