Drawing on evidence from a sample of emerging market economies over the period 1990-2004, this evaluation report reviews the IMF’s approach to capital account liberalization and related issues. The evaluation seeks to contribute to transparency by documenting what in practice has been the IMF's approach to these issues and to identify areas where the IMF’s instruments and operating methods might be improved, in order to deal with these issues more effectively.

This paper analyzes that the IMF has moved beyond its traditional fiscal-centric approach to recognize that social protection can also be macro-critical for broader reasons including social and political stability concerns. Evaluating the IMF’s involvement in social protection is complicated by the fact that there is no standard definition of social protection or of broader/overlapping terms such as social spending and social safeguards in (or outside) the IMF. In this evaluation, social protection is understood to include policies that provide benefits to vulnerable individuals or households. This evaluation found widespread IMF involvement in social protection across countries although the extent of engagement varied. In some cases, engagement was relatively deep, spanning different activities (bilateral surveillance, technical assistance, and/or programs) and involving detailed analysis of distributional impacts, discussion of policy options, active advocacy of social protection, and integration of social protection measures in program design and/or conditionality. This cross-country variation to some degree reflected an appropriate response to country-specific factors, in particular an assessment of whether social protection policy was macrocritical, and the availability of expertise from development partners or in the country itself.

This volume examines how independent evaluation contributes to the legitimacy and effectiveness of the IMF. It describes the evolution and impact of the Independent Evaluation Office ten years after its creation as well as the challenges it has faced. It also incorporates feedback from a wide range of internal and external actors and offers useful insights for international organizations, academics, and other global stakeholders.

The IEO of the IMF was created in 2000 to enhance the learning culture of the IMF, to build the IMF’s external credibility by undertaking objective evaluations in a transparent manner, to provide independent feedback to the Executive Board in its governance and oversight responsibilities, and to promote greater understanding of the work of the IMF among its members and the broader public. In the period October 2005-February 2006, the Evaluation Panel assessed how well the IEO meets these objectives, asking at the outset whether the IMF needs an IEO and whether the existing office is adequately independent. The Panel concludes that the IEO has served the IMF well but identifies certain weaknesses and makes recommendations to the IEO and the IMF to address them.

The IMF’s surveillance framework encompasses a new focus on multilateral issues, and especially the spillovers from one economy onto others. This third Annual Report of the Independent Evaluation Office describes ongoing and recently completed evaluations and discusses additions to IEO’s work plan. General lessons pertaining to IMF surveillance emerging from recent evaluations are highlighted and discussed, namely the need for better integration of financial and macroeconomic factors as well as bilateral and multilateral policy analysis and policy prescriptions. The findings of an External Evaluation Panel charged with assessing the work of the IEO are also covered.

IEO Annual Report 2021

The 2014 Annual Report of the Independent Evaluation Office of the International Monetary Fund.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is in eclipse as the preeminent institution promoting international economic and financial stability. Successful reform of the IMF must engage the full spectrum of its members. The IMF should not focus primarily on its low-income members and the challenges of global poverty nor should it focus exclusively on international financial crises affecting a small group of vulnerable emerging-market economies. Instead, it must be engaged with each of its members potentially on the full range of their economic and financial policies and play a central role in shaping global economic performance. This important new book strongly argues that systemically important countries, starting with the Group of Seven, must support the IMF in this role. Its recommendations cover all key aspects of IMF responsibilities and operations: (1) In the crucial area of governance, the membership of the IMF should promptly address the reallocation of IMF shares (voting power) and the reallocation of chairs (representation on the IMF executive board), and it is time to discard the old conventions and to adopt a merit-based approach to the choice of the IMF's leadership; (2) mechanisms should be put in place to increase the IMF's leverage over systemically important members, and the IMF must act more forcefully in discharging its responsibility to exercise firm surveillance over members' exchange rate policies; (3) the Fund's central role in external financial crises should be reaffirmed; (4) the IMF should narrow and refocus its involvement with its low-income members; (5) the IMF's activities should be updated with respect to members' capital account policies and financial sectors; and (6) the IMF should put in place procedures for borrowing from the market to guard against the possibility that it will not receive timely increases in its quota resources.

Explores the IMF's mandate over capital flows and analyses whether capital controls are consistent with international trade and investment agreements.