The governor of the Bank of England has urge the world’s leading global institutions to fight back against the rise of populism, warning that it represents one of the biggest threats to improvements in living standards.

In a thinly veiled response to Donald Trump’s attempts to interfere with the independence of the US Federal Reserve, Andrew Bailey said that he and the heads of other institutions had a duty to “challenge back” populist narratives.

“Part of the purpose of international agencies is that from time to time they have to tell us what we don’t want to hear, let alone act upon,” he said. “Of course, they have to be accountable for the accuracy and quality of the assessment. But, accepting that, we have to call out messenger shooting.”

Bailey was among a group of 10 central bank governors – including the chair of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde – who this week offered “full solidarity” to the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, after he revealed he had been threatened with legal action.

His comments also come amid rising geopolitical tensions and growing criticism of Trump after the US intervention in Venezuela and the president’s threats to take control of Greenland.

In a speech delivered as world leaders prepare to head to Switzerland for the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos – widely seen as a critical moment for the future of international cooperation – the governor said countries turning inwards would undermine progress to raise living standards. “The rise of so-called populism makes the whole task harder,” he said.

Bailey identified three defining features of populism: a tendency towards domestic production over international openness; attributing unfavourable conditions to “outside forces”; and fuelling decline in trust in domestic and international institutions.

“For those of us who are institutionalised, the answer is that we have to challenge back, in deeds more than just words. But, we have to ensure our houses are in order too,’ he said.

Bailey said the gains of global cooperation were clear. “The benefits of trade and openness in terms of specialisation and larger markets are very well known. So, too, is the need to have rules of the game and some form of commitment and coordination device to put these rules into effect and protect legitimate national interests,” he said.

However, the governor of the UK central bank, who also chairs the international Financial Stability Board – acknowledged that years of lacklustre economic growth and stagnating living standards had made promoting global openness harder.

“While it is true that openness supports growth and has reduced global poverty, it can have, and has had, distributional consequences in economies, and there has been an undermining of social capital so-called and domestic cohesion,” Bailey said.

He added that the challenges facing the world could not be overcome through increasingly isolationist policies.