Review Of Temporary Modifications To The Fund S Access Limits In Response To The Covid 19 Pandemic

Over the course of the pandemic, the Fund has made several modifications to the access limits on the use of Fund’s resources to increase the borrowing space under the hard caps on emergency financing and under the annual limits that trigger exceptional access (EA) safeguards under GRA and PRGT. The current temporarily-increased access limits expire at end-December 2021, and absent policy changes, the limits would return to the lower pre-pandemic levels or to the new PRGT annual access limit. Staff proposes to let all access limits return to pre-pandemic levels (or the new PRGT annual access limit), with the exception of the cumulative access limits for emergency financing instruments, which would be extended at the current level for another 18 months.

The paper discusses possible changes for the Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT), for which the access limits were raised by 45 percent in 2021, bringing them into alignment with GRA access limits for the first time. While these changes helped address low-income countries’ (LICs) financing needs, these needs are projected to further increase in the medium term. An increase in the PRGT access limits in line with the proposed increase in the GRA access limits would help address these needs.

This paper provides the first review of the adequacy of PRGT finances since the comprehensive reform of the Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT) in July 2021. It describes the lending response to the unprecedented pandemic-related demand; updates the PRGT demand scenarios and the estimates of the longer-term PRGT resource needs; reports on progress with the first stage of the two-stage PRGT funding strategy approved in July 2021; and outlines recent developments in the various debt relief initiatives and their status.

To help support members faced with the COVID-19 pandemic, the Fund temporarily increased certain access limits to its emergency financing (EF) instruments, i.e., Rapid Credit Facility (RCF) and Rapid Financing Instrument (RFI). While this expanded support has been critical to help countries manage the pandemic, the increase in access limits was not applied to the Large Natural Disasters (LND) windows within the EF toolkit, reducing the flexibility to respond to such LNDs. This paper proposes to temporarily increase by 50 percent of quota the annual access limit (AAL) and cumulative access limit (CAL) under the LND windows of the RCF and RFI. The changes to the “LND windows” would be in effect through end-December 2021, in line with the other temporary changes of access limits under EF instruments. The case for further extensions to all the temporarily increased EF AALs and CALs will be examined after the 2021 Annual Meetings.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has exacerbated global economic pressures, including through a food shock. The war and food-related spillovers—higher import prices for food and fertilizer and disruptions in supply lines for food importers, and a loss of revenue for some food exporters—add to urgent balance-of-payments (BOP) needs of many Fund members. They have also exacerbated acute food insecurity, now affecting 345 million people. While the best response to address BOP pressures would generally involve an Upper Credit Tranche-quality program, such a program may not be feasible in some cases or necessary in others. This paper proposes a time-bound food shock window under the Rapid Financing Instrument (RFI) and the Rapid Credit Facility (RCF) to provide support to members in such situations. The new window would be temporary and provide low-access emergency financing that increases the amounts currently available under the RFI/RCF. Members would need to demonstrate urgent BOP needs and meet a set of qualification criteria related to the global food shock. The window would be available for 12 months from the date of Board approval of the window. Countries requesting financing under the window would also need to meet the standard qualification criteria under the RFI/RCF.

We construct a high-frequency dataset that combines information on all IMF lending and proxies of monthly economic activity during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic (2020–21). Using this novel dataset and standard econometric techniques we find a positive and significant marginal effect of IMF financing on economic activity in low-income countries (LICs) and emerging market economies. We also present tentative evidence that IMF financing may have helped economic outcomes by easing fiscal budget constraints, allowing for larger government spending in response to the pandemic. Overall, this evidence suggests that IMF financing helped lessen the negative impacts of the pandemic on economic activity, especially in LICs.

This Handbook provides guidance to staff on the IMF’s concessional financial facilities and non-financial instruments for low-income countries (LICs), defined here as all countries eligible to obtain concessional financing from the Fund. It updates the previous version of the Handbook that was published in December 2017 (IMF, 2017e) by incorporating modifications resulting from the 2018–19 Review of Facilities for Low-Income Countries and Review of the Financing of the Fund’s Concessional Assistance and Debt Relief to Low-Income Member Countries (IMF, 2019a, b), approved by the Board in May 2019; the reforms introduced in 2021 on the basis of the Board paper Fund Concessional Financial Support for Low-Income Countries—Responding to the Pandemic (IMF, 2021a), approved in July 2021; and a number of other recent Board papers. Designed as a comprehensive reference tool for program work on LICs, the Handbook also refers, in summary form, to a range of relevant policies that apply more generally to IMF members. As with all guidance notes, the relevant IMF Executive Board decisions including the terms of the various LIC Trust Instruments that have been adopted by the Board, remain the primary legal authority on the matters covered in the Handbook.

This volume is the Forty-Third Issue of Selected Decisions and Selected Documents of the International Monetary Fund. It includes decisions, interpretations, and resolutions of the Executive Board and the Board of Governors of the International Monetary Fund, as well as selected documents, to which frequent reference is made in the current activities of the Fund. In addition, it includes certain documents relating to the Fund, the United Nations, and other international organizations.