Pakistan takes over as chair of the G-24, vowing a fairer deal for developing countries
Pakistan has taken over the chairmanship of the Group of 24 (G-24), the club of developing countries that speaks with one voice on global money and finance. The handover took place on Sunday, 1 November 2026, and puts Pakistan in charge of the group’s agenda for the coming year, at a time when poorer countries are pressing for a bigger say in how the world economy is run.
Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb, who will chair the group on Pakistan’s behalf, described the role as a “profound responsibility” and promised to push for a fairer international financial system. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called the handover “a significant diplomatic milestone” and said it recognised Pakistan’s effective role on the global economic stage.
The chairmanship gives Pakistan a platform, but not a magic wand. The G-24 advises and lobbies; it does not lend money or set rules itself. Its real power is that it lets 28 developing countries agree on a common position before they sit down with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, the two institutions that shape lending, debt and financial rules for much of the world.
At a glance
What happened: Pakistan formally took over the chairmanship of the Intergovernmental Group of Twenty-Four (G-24) on Sunday, 1 November 2026, succeeding Nigeria. Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb set out a three-part agenda for the year ahead.
Why it matters: The G-24 is the main forum where developing countries agree on shared positions for talks with the IMF and the World Bank. As chair, Pakistan will help shape what that group asks for — on development finance, debt and a bigger voice in global economic decisions.
What happens next: Pakistan will chair the group’s meetings through the coming year, including ministerial meetings held alongside the IMF and World Bank spring meetings in April 2027. The group’s next formal statement of its positions, its communiqué, is expected at those meetings.
What happened on 1 November
Pakistan’s Finance Ministry announced the handover on Sunday, 1 November, in a statement carried by the Associated Press of Pakistan, Geo News and Radio Pakistan. The statement said Pakistan would use the chairmanship to strengthen the collective voice of developing economies and to advance a more responsive, fair and development-oriented international financial system.
Aurangzeb said the role called for renewed international cooperation, stronger multilateral institutions and reinforced global commitments to address climate shocks, development financing gaps and global economic fragmentation. He acknowledged Nigeria’s leadership as the outgoing chair and said Pakistan would build on the group’s progress.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif welcomed the handover in a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office. He credited Aurangzeb and the Finance Ministry for their diplomacy and professional competence, and said the chairmanship would give Pakistan a platform to press for reform of the international financial architecture.
The handover itself had been agreed in advance. At the group’s 116th ministerial meeting in Bangkok on 13 and 14 October 2026, Aurangzeb, then the group’s first vice-chair, said Pakistan would take over from Nigeria, and set out the same three priorities he repeated on 1 November. Nigeria’s Taiwo Oyedele chaired that Bangkok meeting, with Ecuador’s Bernardo Acosta as second vice-chair.
The three priorities
Aurangzeb set out three strategic priorities for Pakistan’s year as chair. They are broad, and they carry no figures or dates yet. But they describe the direction Pakistan wants the group to push in.
1. Development at the centre of economic policy
The first priority is to put development back at the centre of global economic policymaking. In plain terms, this means that when the IMF, the World Bank and rich countries make decisions about lending, interest rates and financial rules, the effect on poor and middle-income countries should come first, not last.
Many developing countries argue that the current system was built for a different era. The rules that govern global finance were largely written after the Second World War, when most of today’s developing countries had little say. Pakistan’s argument is that development — jobs, schools, hospitals, roads and clean energy — should be the yardstick against which global economic policy is judged.
2. A real voice in decisions
The second priority is effective representation of developing countries in decision-making at the IMF and the World Bank, the institutions often known as the Bretton Woods institutions after the town in the United States where they were founded in 1944.
This is an old complaint with a simple core. Voting power at the IMF and the World Bank is weighted by how much money each country puts in, which means rich countries hold most of the votes. Developing countries, which borrow from these institutions and live with the conditions attached to their loans, have long argued that their share of the vote does not match their share of the world’s population or of the global economy. Pakistan says it will press for fairer governance and meaningful participation in decision-making.
3. Reform of the financial system
The third priority is reform of the international financial architecture itself — the system of rules, institutions and safety nets that governs how money moves between countries. Pakistan’s statement broke this down into practical goals: providing affordable and timely development finance to developing countries, finding sustainable ways to resolve debt problems, and strengthening the global financial safety net that countries turn to in a crisis.
Debt is a live issue for many G-24 members. Several developing countries spend more on repaying old loans than on health or education. Pakistan itself has been through repeated IMF programmes, and Aurangzeb has made debt a personal theme: in Bangkok in October, he also accepted the chairmanship of the Borrowers’ Platform Governing Council, a separate forum for countries that borrow from international lenders, framing debt as a development tool rather than just a burden.
What is the G-24, and why does it matter?
The G-24 was established in 1971 as a chapter of the Group of 77, the larger coalition of developing nations in the United Nations system. Its full name is the Intergovernmental Group of Twenty-Four on International Monetary Affairs and Development. It was set up to coordinate the positions of developing countries on international monetary and development finance issues, and to make sure their interests are properly represented in negotiations on global money matters.
Despite its name, the group now has 28 member countries, with China taking part as a special invitee. Its members span Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean, and include large economies such as India, Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria, Egypt and South Africa, as well as smaller states such as Haiti, Gabon and Trinidad and Tobago. Any member of the Group of 77 can join its discussions.
The group is not an IMF body, although its secretariat is based at IMF headquarters in Washington, D.C., and the IMF provides its staff support. Its governing body, the Bureau, meets twice a year, ahead of the spring and autumn meetings of the IMF’s International Monetary and Financial Committee and the World Bank’s Joint Development Committee. After each ministerial meeting, the group issues a communiqué setting out its shared positions.
That routine is what makes the chairmanship useful. The chair sets the tone of the meetings, guides the drafting of the communiqué and speaks for the group in talks with the IMF and World Bank leadership. Pakistan’s turn in the chair means its finance minister will be the one framing the developing world’s asks in those rooms for the next year.
Why this matters for Pakistan
For Pakistan, the chairmanship is partly about prestige and partly about practical interests.
On prestige, the role is a visible sign that Pakistan is being treated as a serious voice in global economic diplomacy. The prime minister’s description of it as a “significant diplomatic milestone” reflects that. Pakistan has held prominent international roles before — it is currently also active at the United Nations, where it has spoken up on issues from Western Sahara to cross-border terrorism — but chairing the G-24 puts it at the head of the developing world’s main economic grouping.
On practical interests, the agenda Pakistan has chosen lines up closely with its own needs. Pakistan is a country that has borrowed heavily from the IMF, that faces large climate costs after devastating floods, and that needs cheaper, longer-term finance to build infrastructure and shift to cleaner energy. A system that gives developing countries more say, offers more affordable finance and deals with debt more fairly would directly help Pakistan’s own economy.
Aurangzeb has also used the international stage to make the case for Pakistan’s economic turnaround. In Bangkok in October, he told investors that Pakistan’s fiscal deficit — the gap between what the government spends and what it collects — had fallen to a 22-year low, that the country had run three consecutive years of primary surpluses, and that growth could reach or exceed 4 per cent in the current fiscal year. He also spoke of plans to return repeatedly to Asian bond markets, including Panda bonds in China and samurai bonds in Japan, and of a target for electric vehicles to make up 30 per cent of new vehicle sales by 2030. Those plans are separate from the G-24 role, but they show the direction of the economic story Pakistan wants to tell while it holds the chair.
There are limits, though, and they are worth stating plainly. Chairing the G-24 does not give Pakistan control over IMF lending decisions, and it does not change how votes are weighted at the Fund or the Bank. Those changes need agreement from the countries that hold the most votes, including the United States, European countries, China and Japan. The G-24 can agree on what it wants and argue for it together, but it cannot impose it.
What happens next
The chair year is only just beginning, and much of it will play out behind closed doors. The key dates are the IMF and World Bank spring meetings in April 2027, when the G-24’s ministers will meet and issue their next communiqué. That document will be the first formal test of whether Pakistan’s chairmanship has moved the group’s positions forward.
Before then, the group’s Bureau and its technical working groups will meet to prepare positions on the issues Aurangzeb has flagged — development finance, debt and representation. Pakistan’s own Bureau lineup, including who will serve as its first and second vice-chairs, has not yet been published.
One early question is whether the G-24’s own records catch up with the handover. On 1 November, the group’s published Bureau page still listed Nigeria’s Taiwo Oyedele as chair and Aurangzeb as first vice-chair. That is an administrative lag, not a dispute, but it shows that the formal record-keeping takes time.
For ordinary Pakistanis, the most important thing to watch is not the meetings themselves but whether the agenda produces anything concrete: cheaper finance for climate and development projects, progress on debt relief, or a real shift in how much say developing countries get at the IMF and the World Bank. Those are slow-moving goals. A year as chair is a chance to push them, not a guarantee of success.
Frequently asked questions
What is the G-24?
The G-24 is the Intergovernmental Group of Twenty-Four on International Monetary Affairs and Development. It was set up in 1971 to coordinate the positions of developing countries on international money and development finance, so that their interests are represented in negotiations with the IMF and the World Bank.
How many countries are in the G-24?
Despite the name, the group now has 28 member countries from Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean. China takes part as a special invitee, and any member of the Group of 77 can join its discussions.
Who chaired the G-24 before Pakistan?
Nigeria chaired the group before Pakistan. Nigeria’s Taiwo Oyedele was the outgoing chair, and Pakistan takes over from Nigeria for the coming year.
What does the chair actually do?
The chair leads the group’s ministerial meetings, guides the drafting of its communiqué — the statement of shared positions issued after each meeting — and speaks for the group in talks with the IMF and World Bank leadership. The chair does not control IMF lending or voting.
What are Pakistan’s three priorities as chair?
Development-led growth, with development at the centre of global economic policymaking; stronger representation for developing countries in decision-making at the IMF and World Bank; and reform of the international financial architecture, including affordable development finance, sustainable debt resolution and a stronger global financial safety net.
When will we know if the chairmanship has achieved anything?
The first big test comes at the IMF and World Bank spring meetings in April 2027, when the G-24 ministers meet and issue their next communiqué. Progress on debt, finance and voting reform is usually slow, so results may take longer than a single year to show.
Conclusion
Pakistan’s takeover of the G-24 chair is a real but modest piece of news. It is real because it puts a Pakistani finance minister at the head of the developing world’s main forum on global finance, with a clear agenda on development, representation and reform. It is modest because the chairmanship is a platform for persuasion, not power: the decisions that matter most are still made by the countries with the most votes at the IMF and the World Bank.
What will decide whether the year is remembered as a success is not the handover ceremony but what follows — whether Pakistan can turn a shared agenda into shared action, and whether the world’s richest countries are willing to listen. The spring meetings in April 2027 will give the first answer.
This article is for general information and education only. It is not legal or financial advice.
Sources
- Associated Press of Pakistan, via Islamabad Post: “Pakistan assumes G-24 chairmanship” (1 November 2026) — https://islamabadpost.com.pk/pakistan-assumes-g-24-chairmanship/
- “Pakistan takes over the G-24 chair and its reform agenda” (1 November 2026) — https://khabarwire.com/blog/pakistan-assumes-g24-chairmanship-2026-11-01/
- “Pakistan takes G-24 chair, calls for fairer global financial system” (1 November 2026) — https://www.europesays.com/3346231/
- “Pakistan takes G-24 chair in Bangkok, eyes Panda bonds” (14 October 2026) — https://khabarwire.com/blog/pakistan-g24-chair-aurangzeb-2026-10-14/
- “Group of 24” — background on the group’s history, membership and structure — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_of_24
