Okonjo-Iweala, Lagarde, and Bourla Discuss Economic Resilience at WEF 2026

There are two new features that we need to embrace. One is we are in a more shock-prone world. We get surprised by geopolitics, by technology, by climate. And we are not so accustomed to being in that kind of fast-changing environment. And two, we need to recognize that we are in a multi-polar world. There are now regions in the world that have picked up. They have economic and geopolitical significance that they didn't have before. I can tell you from where I sit at the IMF, we embrace lovingly all our 191 members. And for a long time we would do analysis at the country level and then at the global level and now we recognize that we need to look at these regions. We need to look at the world as it is changing. And for example, the Gulf Cooperation Council is a place I visit frequently because of the economic and geopolitical role it has. ASEAN is a part of the world that has shown tremendous dynamism. So the point I want to make is that how many of you have watched the movie The Wizard of Oz? Raise your hand. Wizard of Oz. Very simple. We are not in Kansas anymore.

Dr. Ngozi, weigh in on this for us because the other piece of this is despite all of the various things we learned this week and what seemed like a lot of back and forth and all of the consternation and hand-wringing, the economic numbers and the outlook for the most part seems to be remarkably optimistic.

Yes. Thank you, Andrew. I know it's hard for people to believe especially with the tremendous disruptions we are seeing. So sometimes when you quote the numbers and like Christine said we have to be careful the numbers we're quoting, but I like to speak based on the numbers I see. People get surprised, but why should you be? Some of the systems that were built over this past 80 years were remarkably well built and so what is happening is that in spite of all the disruptions there's some resiliency built into the system and that's what's showing up along with other new things that are happening. So for instance on the trade front, trade has suffered the biggest disruption in 80 years. Global trade, there's absolutely no doubt about that. Global trade rules have been undermined. But I think the system has been put together in such a way that is quite strong and it will take a lot to destroy it because we find that when we do the analysis, we haven't changed our methodology. 72% of world trade is still going on on WTO terms and people find that difficult. So the system is resilient but does that mean that it doesn't have problems? Absolutely not. So I always say I may not agree with the unilateral actions on trade that have been taken but I certainly agree with some of the diagnosis that things are not going well and things need to change and that's why the WTO are very keen on reforming. But let me say this, from this week there's one message. When I came in, I was in another interview and last year I said 'chill' when I was asked what should we do. I said 'calm, steady nerves.' This time, steady nerves meaning that you don't have to react immediately to all you see and that's where I share Christine's 'let's separate the noise from actually what is happening.' You need steady nerves to assess what the situation is and to react. If you react immediately, you may react the wrong way. But let me also then add that what we should learn is that anyone who has too many dependencies, if business people and policy makers leave this place not knowing that they have to manage their dependencies, then they've not taken away a lesson. If we are over-dependent on the US for markets from the trade front, over-dependent on China for critical supplies, we need to diversify and I think part of what Mark was saying was that he is trying to diversify Canada in trade and we are supporting that our members should diversify their trade.

But just to follow up on that, do you think this is a forever situation? Meaning there's some view that President Trump has taken a very aggressive approach around tariffs and around allies and that he will be in office for another 3 years but that the world could change in the future as a result. And then there's other people who think this is a state of permanence, some of these divides, some of these tariff issues, some of these issues around supply chains and resilience and other things. Some on the good side, some on the bad side. So, how do you see that?

I don't think we'll go back to where we were.

You don't?

No. And I think that if I were a business and a policy maker, I would be planning against a world that is not going to go back to where it was. A world that will have built-in uncertainties in it. And therefore, I need to plan for how I'm going to be resilient with my business or my country. And I so touch on something Cristina says, if I was running a country I'd be trying to strengthen myself and my region and I'd be looking at my region and then building resilience. So I don't think things will go back but they will not be as bad as maybe. We'll have a slightly better steady state for the future but I don't believe we are going back.

I don't know if you're clapping for me or for WTO, but whichever it is, we welcome it. I agree. There'll be a call, the multilateral call will be needed.

Let me go to Minister Al Jadaan. I think one of the other pieces and they're actually not as big a discussion this week in some ways, though the co-topic of energy came up repeatedly but oftentimes in the context of AI. But let me ask you in the context of geopolitics what you think of the impact of what's happened with the US and Venezuela and ultimately what you think it means to the price of oil and how you see all of that playing itself out.

Thank you very much and I would like actually to just comment on the earlier discussion very briefly and then I'll come to the energy market. It was interesting to hear a lot of discussions including in the last 10 minutes about we are living in a new world order. And I think it's interesting because we need to define 'we.' And I think I can tell you a lot of 'we', our region is included, have actually been living in a different world order for decades. So you are just, the West is starting to experience it and that's why they say 'we' but we've been living it actually for some time. And if there is the reason why I mentioned it is look at those who lived it for decades and how they had to deal with it. And you know a few examples, I will talk about the Gulf States but more those who actually even reached the diversification they want is, you know, Singapore, Korea, China. And then look at what we are doing in the GCC. So you need to build resilience and you need really to focus on what you can control. I mean I agree isolating the noise, muting the noise is very important because you just focus on what you can do whether it is like Ngozi said in your own country or in your own region and build that resilience. Back to the energy, I think Venezuela has been, I think a founding member of OPEC and has been producing oil even though at a lower level, very low levels recently or in the last few years. I'm not an expert in oil but I can tell you generally I don't think that you will see any serious impact in the oil market. Any increase will take time and will take significant investments. And the worry that we should really focus on is not just Venezuela. The worry is you need to make sure that your calculation of the energy demand and energy supply and the price levels at which investments will flow into the oil market will incentivize investors and not damage the world economy. So that fluctuation that we see and I can tell you every time there is a suppressed oil price is followed by a serious spike that hurts the global economy. And our role, so as OPEC plus members, is to try and actually stabilize the market so that we avoid as much as possible or at least mitigate, reduce this fluctuation.

Albert, I want to understand the perspective of a multinational CEO in this moment and what you saw happening this week, the conversations that you had with people throughout the week. I'm curious how your job in so many ways has fundamentally shifted.

Just so we know, you said the good part and then you see what's the bad part.