Executive Board Progress Report To The Imfc On The Fund S Mandate

This paper responds to the IMFC call to review, in light of the crisis, the Fund’s mandate over macroeconomic and financial sector policies bearing on global stability. The crisis exposed weaknesses in economic oversight—national, regional, and global—prior to the crisis, prompting major institutional innovations to uncover risks and meet large and diverse financing needs. Despite progress, it still needs to be asked if the mandate in the Fund’s Articles is up to the challenges ahead. The Board’s deliberations, which are far from complete, have prompted it to emphasize practical steps to deliver on the Fund’s broad stability mandate, with any need to amend the Articles reconsidered in light of experience. The effectiveness of these steps will also depend on quota and governance reform, as confidence in the Fund as an impartial overseer of global stability and lender of last resort rests on its legitimacy.

At its most recent meeting in April 2010, the IMFC pledged to complete the 14th General Review of Quotas before January 2011. This follows an earlier call by G-20 Leaders and the IMFC to bring forward the deadline for completing the 14th Review by two years as part of the multilateral response to the global financial crisis and the recognized need to enhance the Fund’s legitimacy and effectiveness.

This paper responds to the request in the April 2009 IMFC communiqué for the Executive Board to report on governance reform. The current crisis has shown that the Fund’s decision-making structures can deliver the kind of innovative and rapid responses the membership needs and expects. Even so, there is an undercurrent of doubt about the future, reflecting the perception that much of the recent responsiveness has been driven by outside forces (e.g., the G-20) and that, once the crisis fades, old dissatisfactions with vote, voice and process will resurface to undermine the political backing that has been key to the Fund’s renewal. Hence, the IMFC’s interest in reforms to underpin the institution’s legitimacy and effectiveness is important and timely. This report focuses on five areas: fair quota share; high-level engagement; effective decision-making and representation at the Executive Board; open selection of management (and, more broadly, staff diversity); and updating of the Fund’s mandate.

Since the IMFC last met in April, the Executive Board has taken up the full range of quota and other governance reforms. While there has been some movement on the many complex issues, discussions have been inconclusive, and no proposal has been able to command broad support. The concluding remarks that sum up these meetings lay out the various positions taken by members of the Board (attached). The debate is continuing, and we hope to make progress on finding the possible elements of a compromise acceptable to the membership.

"On May 21, 2008, the Executive Board discussed the report of the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) on 'Aspects of IMF Corporate Governance--Including the Role of the Executive Board.' The Joint Statement issued by the Executive Board and the Managing Director following the Board discussion noted that many of the issues raised by the IEO were complex and interrelated. Furthermore, the follow-up discussion would require the engagement of all parties at many different levels, involving not only the Executive Board and Management, but also the Fund's membership and other stakeholders more broadly. This report presents the recommendations of the Working Group, based on work carried out during June-July 2008. The proposed detailed work plan in Table 1 is an integral part of this report. Section II of the report describes the work streams. Section III discusses issues beyond the IEO report and proposes a monitoring process. Section IV presents the recommendations"--International Monetary Fund website.

Since the 2022 Annual Meetings, good progress has been made in advancing evaluation work at the IMF. The IEO has completed one evaluation and commenced two new evaluations selected from a menu of possible topics previously discussed with the Executive Board. A book drawing from the IEO 20th Anniversary Conference was published in early April. The current IEO Director, Charles Collyns, completes his term in April and will be succeeded by Pablo Moreno in May.

Since the October 2017 report to the IMFC, the IEO has completed an evaluation of the IMF’s work in fragile states and an update of its 2007 evaluation of IMF exchange rate policy advice. The office continued work on two evaluations, on IMF financial surveillance and on IMF advice on unconventional monetary policies, as well as an update of the 2008 evaluation of structural conditionality. It also launched an update of IEO’s 2008 Evaluation of IMF Governance. The IEO welcomes recent steps taken by the IMF to follow through on Board-endorsed recommendations of its 2016–17 evaluations.

This report by the external panel of experts (“the panel”) examines the effectiveness and appropriateness of the safeguards policy over the ten years since the inception of the policy, and most particularly in the five years since its last review. Furthermore, the panel, drawing on its research and experience, aims to establish a course for the Executive Board to consider that would help the safeguards policy continually improve, adapt to changing world conditions, and remain viable and relevant for the next decade. In gathering data to form its opinion, the panel (i) consulted with stakeholders in the policy (including central bank authorities, IMF Executive Directors’ offices, Fund and World Bank staff, and international audit firms), (ii) examined safeguards and other Fund-specific documents, and (iii) researched international reference materials.