The wave of financial crises in the last decade has generated a consensus that the international financial system needs to be reformed. But there remain profound disagreements among policy makers and the private sector concerning how far and deep the reforms should go.

To capitalize on this opportunity for progress, the World Economic Forum and the Reinventing Bretton Woods Committee, in co-operation with selected finance ministries and central banks of G-20 countries, are organizing a year-long series of public-private roundtables on the future of the international monetary system.

This project seeks to provide input into the deliberations of policy-makers by convening them for off-the-record sessions with some of the world’s leading private sector and academic authorities.

Some of the two-day roundtables are organized around G-20 meetings, in cooperation with the host government. Each roundtable is supported by research papers written by prominent academics, officials and private sector participants.

This will culminate in a final publication to be issued in late 2006 that will include a summary of key findings from the roundtable series as well as a selection of the research papers prepared for the project.