Augusto Lopez-Claros is the founder and Executive Director of the Global Governance Forum, a Geneva-based organization dedicated to strengthening international cooperation and developing practical proposals for reforming global governance institutions. An international economist, author, and institutional reform advocate, he has more than three decades of experience in senior positions at the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Economic Forum, and other international institutions.
Since founding the Global Governance Forum in 2020, Lopez-Claros has led an ambitious programme of research and policy development addressing some of the most pressing challenges facing the international community. A central focus of this work has been the development of A Second United Nations Charter, published in 2024, a comprehensive blueprint for modernizing the UN system and strengthening its capacity to address global threats. This initiative has been complemented by the preparation of detailed Protocols addressing collective security, disarmament, sustainable UN financing, and democratic representation through a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly. He is also leading an initiative to develop an International Convention on the Elimination of Malnutrition, aimed at establishing stronger international legal obligations and accountability mechanisms to address one of the most persistent barriers to human development.
Previously, Lopez-Claros served as Director of the Global Indicators Group at the World Bank (2011–2017), where he oversaw major international research programmes, including Doing Business and Women, Business and the Law. Earlier, he was Chief Economist and Director of the Global Competitiveness Program at the World Economic Forum in Geneva, where he edited the Global Competitiveness Report. He also served as the International Monetary Fund’s Resident Representative in Russia during the country’s transition to a market economy and held other positions at the IMF. Between 2017 and 2019, he was a Senior Fellow at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, where he pursued research on global governance and institutional reform.
His publications include Equality for Women = Prosperity for All (St. Martin’s Press, 2018), Global Governance and the Emergence of Global Institutions for the 21st Century (Cambridge University Press, 2020), and Global Governance and International Cooperation: Managing Global Catastrophic Risks in the 21st Century (Routledge, 2024), co-edited with Richard Falk. His recent scholarly work also includes Strengthening the IMF for the 21st Century, published in The Oxford Handbook of the International Monetary Fund (Oxford University Press, 2024).
Educated at Cambridge University, where he earned a diploma in Mathematical Statistics, and Duke University, where he received his Ph.D. in Economics, Lopez-Claros has lectured extensively at leading universities, international organizations, and policy institutions worldwide. A selection of his lectures and public presentations is available here.