Statement By The Managing Director On The Work Program Of The Executive Board Executive Board Meeting November 24 2014

The Managing Director’s Global Policy Agenda (GPA) presented to the IMFC in October identified a range of actions needed to prevent growth from settling into a “new mediocre” with unacceptably low job creation and inclusion. These actions included managing eventual monetary normalization in advanced economies and its effects on other economies, growth-friendly fiscal policies to enhance the quality of public expenditure and reduce distortions in revenue collection, policies to safeguard financial stability while strengthening credit transmission, structural reforms to buttress productivity and strengthen growth, and increasing investment in infrastructure. The GPA also outlined how the Fund would support the membership through assessments and policy advice provided in the context of multilateral and bilateral surveillance, capacity building, and financial support.

The global economy is going through a period of unprecedented financial instability. The Fund has been asked by the IMFC to play a leading role in helping the membership both to deal with the immediate crisis and work towards a new strengthened global architecture. These tasks are well within our mandate. Addressing these challenges—and doing so within a compressed timeframe—will require strict prioritization on three key areas: (i) providing policy advice and timely financial support that meets members’ needs; (ii) understanding what went wrong; (iii) and assembling the building blocks of a new international financial architecture.

This report seeks to help the IMF enhance its effectiveness by identifying major recurring issues from the IEO’s first 20 evaluations and assessing where they stand. The IMF’s core areas of responsibility are surveillance, lending, and capacity development. The aim of this report is to strengthen the follow-up process by focusing on key issues that recurred in IEO evaluations, rather than on specific recommendations on their implementation. The IEO believes that a framework of reviewing and monitoring recurring issues would be useful in establishing incentives for progress, strengthening the Board’s oversight, and providing learning opportunities for the IMF.