How did the dispute over reforming the International Monetary Fund blow up?
The issue of reforming the International Monetary Fund’s executive board has been on and off the boil for several years. Voting power on the board reflects the “quotas” that each member country lends to the IMF, constructed according to a complex formula very roughly based on shares in the global economy. But they still partly reflect the state of the world when the fund was created in 1945. Fast-growing emerging market countries such as China have long complained that they are under-represented, and the US has argued that Europe has too many board directors and too much voting weight.

Who is on the board and what does it do?
There are 24 directors. Eight of them represent a single country each – the US, UK, France, Germany, Japan, Saudi Arabia, China and Russia. The others have to speak up for a variety of countries – the two African directors, for example, are responsible for 43 countries between them. The board takes big decisions at the fund and holds its leadership to account, including the managing director, currently the French former politician Dominique Strauss-Kahn.