In connection with its recent review of the GRA Lending Toolkit and Conditionality—Reform Proposals, the Executive Board decided that the Fund would move to a review-based approach to monitor the implementation of structural reforms in the context of Fund-supported programs, including under PRGF or ESF arrangements.

This volume documents decisions, interpretations, and resolutions of the Executive Board and Board of Governors of the International Monetary Fund, as well as documents relating to the United Nations and other international organizations.

This volume documents decisions, interpretations, and resolutions of the Executive Board and Board of Governors of the International Monetary Fund, as well as documents relating to the United Nations and other international organizations.

Selected Decisions and Selected Documents of the International Monetary Fund includes decisions, interpretations, and resolutions of the Executive Board and Board of Governors of the IMF, as well as selected documents to which frequent reference is made in the current activities of the Fund. In addition, it includes certain documents pertaining to the relations between the Fund and other international organizations.

Motivation and approach. Last year’s major reforms of the Fund’s lending instruments, together with the commitment to treble its resources, made a significant contribution to global stabilization as Fund lending created room for policy accommodation and helped countries weather the worst of the crisis. While these reforms have yielded positive results, it is appropriate to ask—as the IMFC has—whether there is scope to build on this experience. This paper tries to answer this question, including by drawing on the lessons of the crisis, as perceived by policymakers, market participants, and academic observers, with whom Fund staff has consulted extensively. While every effort has been made to explore the pros and cons of various reform options neutrally, some options are clearly more evolutionary (e.g., those building on last year’s headline introduction of the Flexible Credit Line or FCL), while others are of a more radical nature (e.g., Fund provision of pure insurance payouts or collateralized lending). This paper focuses on the former, covering the latter set of ideas in a supplement. Once the Executive Board has had a chance to comment on all options, a more defined and specific set of proposals could be developed by staff for further consideration.

Periodic Monitoring Reports (PMRs) were established by the Executive Board in January 2007 to ensure the systematic monitoring of those IEO recommendations that the Board has endorsed. The first PMR was discussed by the Executive Board in January 20081 and the second PMR was discussed by the Evaluation Committee (EVC) in November 2008.2 This third report updates the status of the performance benchmarks related to IEO evaluations covered in the first and second PMRs and listed in Periodic Monitoring Report on the Status of Implementation Plans in Response to Board-Endorsed IEO Recommendations, Table 5. It also updates the implementation status of the management implementation plan (MIP) for Board-endorsed recommendations stemming from the IEO evaluation of "Structural Conditionality in IMF-Supported Programs."

The Thirty-Seventh Issue of Selected Decisions and Selected Documents of the International Monetary Fund 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 documents relating to the IMF, the United Nations, and other international organizations.

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.

This Handbook provides guidance to staff on the 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 February 2016 (IMF, 2016d) by incorporating modifications resulting from Board papers and related decisions since that time, including Financing for Development—Enhancing the Financial Safety Net for Developing Countries—Further Considerations (IMF, 2016c), Review of Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust – Review of Interest Rate Structure (IMF, 2016b), Eligibility to Use the Fund’s Facilities for Concessional Financing (IMF, 2017a), Large Natural Disasters—Enhancing the Financial Safety Net for Developing Countries (IMF, 2017b) and Adequacy of the Global Financial Safety Net – Proposal for a New Policy Coordination Instrument (IMF, 2017c). 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 sole legal authority on the matters covered in the Handbook

This note highlights the unique economic characteristics and constraints facing small developing states. It provides operational guidance on Fund engagement with such countries, including on how small country size might influence the use of Fund facilities and instruments, program design, capacity building activities, and collaboration with other institutions and donors. The guidance note draws on the March 2013 Board papers on small states and the associated Executive Board discussion. The findings of the paper and implications for Fund engagement with small states were presented to small states authorities during the 2013 Annual Meetings, as well as in regional IMF conferences with small states in the Bahamas (September 2013) and Vanuatu (November 2013). Series