Pakistan assumes G-24 chairmanship, with Aurangzeb pledging a fairer, development-led global financial system
Pakistan assumed the chairmanship of the Intergovernmental Group of Twenty-Four on Sunday, with Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb setting out three priorities — development-led growth, stronger representation for developing economies, and reform of the international financial architecture.
Pakistan assumed the chairmanship of the Intergovernmental Group of Twenty-Four (G-24) on Sunday, 1 November 2026, taking the lead of the bloc that speaks for developing economies in global financial policymaking. The Finance Ministry announced the move in a statement posted on X, saying Pakistan reaffirmed its commitment to strengthening the “collective voice of developing economies” and advancing a “fair, responsive and development-oriented international financial system”.
Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb, who becomes the group’s chairman, described the role as a “profound responsibility”. He called for renewed international cooperation, stronger multilateral institutions and reinforced global commitments to address climate shocks, development financing gaps and economic fragmentation — the pressures that, in his account, now define the economic experience of much of the developing world.
Aurangzeb set out three priorities for Pakistan’s chairmanship, reported consistently by Geo, the Express Tribune, Hum English, Dunya News and Business Recorder. The first is to place development at the centre of global economic policymaking. Macroeconomic stability, he said, “must serve as a foundation for investment, productivity, employment and shared prosperity”, enabling developing and low-income economies to move beyond crisis management towards sustainable growth, rather than remaining an end in itself.
The second priority is to make multilateral frameworks more inclusive and representative. Pakistan will advocate, Aurangzeb said, for more equitable and fair governance, meaningful participation in decision-making and greater responsiveness of the Bretton Woods institutions — the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank — to the evolving needs and realities of their members. The argument is that institutions designed in a different era should reflect the weight developing economies now carry in investment, innovation, entrepreneurship and global growth.
The third priority is to advance a development-oriented financial architecture. In practice, Aurangzeb said, that means affordable and timely development financing, sustainable debt solutions, stronger global financial safety nets, climate resilience and greater mobilisation of public and private capital. “Our task is to ensure that the immense potential of developing economies is not constrained by an international financial architecture that has yet to fully adapt to a changing world,” he said.
“The future of developing economies is not peripheral to the future of the global economy. It is central to it,” Aurangzeb added, in a line carried by Business Recorder. The formulation captures the chairmanship’s central pitch: that developing countries are not asking for charity from the global financial system, but for a system that works better for the economies now driving much of the world’s growth.
The G-24 brings together developing economies from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and works closely with the IMF, the World Bank and other international partners. Its chairmanship rotates, and Pakistan takes over from Nigeria, whose leadership Aurangzeb acknowledged, pledging to build on the group’s progress. The group’s work is guided, the Finance Ministry said, by its longstanding principles of consultation, consensus and collective advocacy — a reminder that its influence rests on agreement among members with very different economies, rather than on the power of any single country.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif welcomed the appointment, expressing delight at Pakistan being granted the chairmanship and describing it as a significant diplomatic milestone that recognises Pakistan’s effective role on the global economic landscape. The prime minister’s reaction underlines how Islamabad intends to present the role at home: not as a ceremonial title, but as evidence of Pakistan’s standing in international economic forums after years in which its own economy has depended heavily on IMF programmes and external financing.
That domestic context matters for how the chairmanship will be judged. Pakistan comes to the role as a country that has itself sought debt relief, climate financing and IMF support, and its advocacy for affordable financing and sustainable debt solutions will be read against its own experience. Supporters will argue that experience gives its message credibility; critics may ask whether a chair that is itself a borrower can move institutions that are ultimately governed by their largest shareholders.
What happens next will depend on whether Pakistan can translate its three priorities into practical outcomes. Reform of IMF and World Bank governance, debt architecture and climate finance are long negotiations, not decisions taken at a single meeting, and progress is usually measured in small, technical steps — quota reviews, lending terms, safety-net arrangements — rather than in headline announcements. The chairmanship gives Pakistan the agenda-setting role for the group’s collective positions; whether those positions shift the institutions themselves will only become clear over the months of its tenure.
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