Most Western governments agree there are too many international organizations and that they cost too much and often duplicate one another's work.
But what to do about the problem is another matter.The question of reforming global agencies with the aim of saving billions of dollars - largely contributed by the United States, Western Europe and Japan - is on the agenda of next week's seven-nation economic summit in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
However, President Clinton and leaders of the other industrial powers - Germany, Japan, France, Britain, Italy and Canada - are unlikely to take more than a tentative stab toward achieving any reform.
When they met last year in Naples, the Big Seven leaders agreed to examine the maze of international institutions dealing with global cooperation to determine whether all of them are needed and how to eliminate overlap.
Results of the review by senior summit officials known as sherpas were to be presented to the political leaders in Halifax.
At the time, it was suggested that the Big Seven this year would cut at least some international economic bodies like the World Bank and the 25-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris and would get tough with the United Nations over its dozens of social, economic and specialized agencies.
But it now appears that Clinton and the other leaders will be offered little more than a blueprint setting out the areas of concern.
According to French government officials, the sole concrete suggestion related to international agencies that is certain to get a hearing in Halifax will be a proposal to beef up the financial reserves of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in order to deal more smoothly with future crises like the one that rocked Mexico earlier this year.
But drastic institutional reforms seem sure to be left for another day.
"Many global agencies are doing identical work," says former OECD official Peter Riegler, now a Paris-based consultant on international lending programs. "The duplication creates confusion, delay and enormous waste."
Furthermore, the situation promises to get worse soon because the recently created World Trade Organization (WTO) has been given wide responsibilities that call into question the operations of several older organizations, he added.
"The WTO makes the involvement in trade issues of bodies like the World Bank and the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) unnecessary," Riegler argues. "But there's not the slightest sign of those organizations winding down their activities in world trade."
Examples of overlap abound.
Britain's authoritative Financial Times recently noted that at least six major international agencies - among them the World Bank and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization - deal with world poverty.
But the Halifax summit will tread gingerly because trimming the panoply of international institutions is a political minefield, according to Riegler.
"Third World countries are deeply suspicious of any attempt to reduce the number of international agencies as a maneuver not only to slash aid going to them but also to undercut their political influence," he says.
"Within the United Nations, they have the votes to wage a bitter battle to keep the 46 bodies that deal with economic, social and health problems although it is obvious a significant number of them wouldn't be missed."