Augusto Lopez-Claros is the founder and Executive Director of the Global Governance Forum, a Geneva-based organization established in 2020 to develop innovative, practical proposals for strengthening international cooperation and reforming the institutions of global governance. An international economist, author, and scholar of global governance, 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. His work has increasingly focused on the institutional foundations of international cooperation, the prevention of global catastrophic risks, economic development, gender equality, and the reform of the United Nations system.
Global Governance Forum and UN reform
Since establishing the Global Governance Forum in 2020, Lopez-Claros has led an expanding programme of research, publications, expert consultations, and international policy engagement aimed at addressing some of the most consequential challenges facing humanity. The Forum’s work encompasses UN reform, collective security and disarmament, climate governance, gender equality, economic development, and the strengthening of international institutions.
A central achievement of this work has been the preparation of A Second United Nations Charter (2024), a comprehensive proposal for modernizing the United Nations and equipping it with the institutional capacities needed to respond more effectively to the challenges of the twenty-first century. Building on the principles of the existing UN Charter, the proposed framework envisages a more representative, accountable, adequately financed, and effective system of international governance, capable of addressing threats to international peace and security, protecting human rights, and advancing sustainable development.
This initiative has subsequently been complemented by the development of a set of detailed Protocols addressing collective security, disarmament, sustainable UN financing, relations with civil society, and the establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly. The collective security and disarmament proposals include arrangements for a standing international peace force, stronger mechanisms for the peaceful settlement of disputes, and a progressive framework for reducing national armaments under effective international oversight. These proposals have been developed through consultations involving former senior UN officials, diplomats, international lawyers, scholars, and experts in peace and security.
Another major initiative currently being led by Lopez-Claros is the development of an International Convention on the Elimination of Malnutrition. Supported in its initial phase by The Rockefeller Foundation, the project seeks to establish a comprehensive international legal framework for addressing the underlying causes of malnutrition, integrating nutrition into national development strategies, strengthening accountability, and promoting more effective international cooperation. The initiative reflects his longstanding interest in the relationship between economic development, human capabilities, institutional quality, and social justice.
Under his leadership, the Forum has also produced research and publications on global catastrophic risks, gender equality, and the effectiveness of international institutions, including the Global Catastrophic Risk Index and the Gender Equality and Governance Index. Through its publications, international consultations, and Global Governance Podcast, the Forum seeks to connect rigorous scholarship with practical policy proposals and informed public debate.
Georgetown University and scholarly work
From 2017 to 2019, Lopez-Claros was a Senior Fellow at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. This period marked an important transition in his intellectual work, from an earlier concentration on macroeconomics, international competitiveness, and economic development toward a broader examination of the institutions needed to manage global interdependence.
During his Georgetown fellowship, he co-authored Global Governance and the Emergence of Global Institutions for the 21st Century, published by Cambridge University Press in 2020. The book examines the limitations of the existing international institutional architecture and proposes a far-reaching programme of reforms to strengthen collective security, international law, democratic accountability, and the capacity of the international community to address global challenges.
He also completed Equality for Women = Prosperity for All, published by St. Martin’s Press in 2018, which examines the economic and social consequences of gender inequality and the policies and institutional reforms needed to achieve greater equality of opportunity. These two books reflect complementary dimensions of his work: the importance of effective institutions for international cooperation and the central role of equality, justice, and human capabilities in economic and social progress.
In 2018, Lopez-Claros and his co-authors received the New Shape Prize, awarded by the Global Challenges Foundation in Sweden, for a proposal to reform global governance institutions. The proposal subsequently informed the development of their Cambridge University Press book.
His more recent publications include Global Governance and International Cooperation: Managing Global Catastrophic Risks in the 21st Century (Routledge, 2024), co-edited with Richard Falk, and Strengthening the IMF for the 21st Century, published in The Oxford Handbook of the International Monetary Fund (Oxford University Press, 2024).
World Bank
Between 2011 and 2017, Lopez-Claros was Director of the Global Indicators Group in the Development Economics Vice Presidency of the World Bank in Washington, DC. He led a multidisciplinary team of approximately 100 economists, lawyers, and data specialists responsible for some of the Bank’s most widely used international benchmarking and policy research programmes.
These included Doing Business, Women, Business and the Law, and Enabling the Business of Agriculture, which examined the regulatory and institutional environments shaping economic activity, gender equality, and agricultural development across nearly 190 economies.
His responsibilities encompassed research strategy, methodological oversight, quality assurance, institutional partnerships, and engagement with governments and international organizations. During his tenure, he mobilized more than US$30 million in external funding to support the Group’s research and analytical activities.
The work of the Global Indicators Group reflected his longstanding interest in the relationship between institutional quality, governance, regulatory frameworks, and economic performance, as well as the importance of comparative evidence in informing public policy.
World Economic Forum
From 2003 to 2006, Lopez-Claros was Chief Economist and Director of the Global Competitiveness Program at the World Economic Forum in Geneva. In this capacity, he directed the Forum’s flagship research programme on international competitiveness, economic growth, productivity, innovation, and the institutional determinants of economic development.
He served as editor of The Global Competitiveness Report, one of the Forum’s principal publications, and coordinated an extensive international research network involving academics, partner institutions, policymakers, and business leaders.
His work at the Forum included comparative assessments of national economic performance, the development and application of competitiveness indicators, and research on the relationship between institutions, technological innovation, gender equality, and long-term economic growth.
He participated extensively in international policy discussions, including the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meetings in Davos and regional economic summits in Asia, Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East, engaging with senior government officials, international organizations, academics, and leaders from the private sector.
International Monetary Fund
Lopez-Claros began his career at the International Monetary Fund in the mid-1980s, holding a succession of positions involving economic surveillance, policy analysis, international development, and institutional reform.
He served as country economist for Spain during a period of important economic transformation associated with the country’s integration into the European Community. His responsibilities included the preparation of economic assessments and policy papers for consideration by the IMF’s Executive Board.
He subsequently worked in the IMF’s Policy Development and Review Department, contributing to policy analysis on concessional lending, economic development, collaboration between the IMF and World Bank, and the challenges facing economies undergoing structural transformation.
During the 1990s, he served as the IMF’s Resident Representative in the Russian Federation, at a particularly consequential moment in the country’s transition from central planning to a market economy. In this role, he was responsible for matters related to the implementation of the IMF’s multibillion-dollar programme of financial assistance to Russia and maintained regular contact with senior officials in the government, central bank, and parliament.
His experience in Russia provided an unusually direct perspective on the economic, political, and institutional complexities of systemic transition. Following his assignment, he remained in Moscow for a period of research and travel, subsequently publishing work on the Russian economy and its reform challenges.
International finance and economic research
From 1998 to 2003, Lopez-Claros was Executive Director and Senior International Economist at Lehman Brothers International in London, where he focused on emerging markets, international capital flows, sovereign debt, financial crises, and global economic developments.
His responsibilities included the preparation of economic research and policy assessments, engagement with institutional investors, and meetings with finance ministers, central bank governors, and other senior policymakers across Europe, the Americas, Asia, and the Middle East.
He was also a frequent commentator on international economic and financial developments, contributing to public discussion through television interviews, conferences, and policy forums.
Between 2007 and 2011, he founded and led EFD Consulting Network, providing economic research and strategic advice on international competitiveness, governance, and development to institutional and corporate clients.
Academic background and teaching
Lopez-Claros received a Diploma in Mathematical Statistics from Darwin College, University of Cambridge, in 1977, and subsequently earned an M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics from Duke University in the United States.
Before joining the IMF, he was Professor of Economics at the University of Chile in Santiago, where he taught econometrics, mathematical statistics, and mathematical economics. He also led a research team supported by Chile’s Ministry of Health examining the economic dimensions of alcohol abuse and its implications for public policy.
Throughout his career, he has maintained a strong commitment to scholarship, teaching, and the communication of economic and institutional ideas to wider audiences.
Publications, lectures and public engagement
Lopez-Claros has written extensively on international economic integration, competitiveness, economic development, gender equality, corruption, institutional reform, and global governance. His research and publications reflect a continuing concern with the relationship between economic performance, effective institutions, equality of opportunity, and the capacity of governments and international organizations to address collective challenges.
He has lectured at leading universities and research institutions, including Harvard University, Stanford University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford, Georgetown University, the Graduate Institute in Geneva, and the Stockholm School of Economics.
He has also addressed numerous international and public institutions, including the European Parliament, OECD, World Trade Organization, European Central Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Inter-Parliamentary Union, and national central banks, as well as leading policy institutes and international conferences.
His contributions to research and public policy have been recognized through several distinctions, including the 2018 New Shape Prize of the Global Challenges Foundation and the 2020 ClosinGap Award in Spain, recognizing his work on the economic consequences of gender equality.
Through his writing, lectures, institutional leadership, and engagement with policymakers and civil society, Lopez-Claros continues to advocate for a stronger, more equitable, and more effective system of international cooperation, grounded in the conviction that humanity’s most pressing challenges require institutions capable of translating shared principles into practical and enforceable commitments.
A selection of his lectures and public presentations is available here.