Strengthening the capacity of institutions—including central banks, finance ministries, revenue administrations, statistical agencies, and financial sector supervisory agencies—results in more effective policies and greater economic stability. The IMF works with member countries to modernize their economic policies and make institutions more effective by providing demand-driven, tailored technical assistance and training focused on issues that are critical to economic stability and growth. Capacity development can help countries improve tax collection, modernize monetary and exchange rate policies, develop legal systems, strengthen governance, collect and disseminate data, and much more.
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The IMF provides capacity development in various ways. Staff from the IMF’s headquarters may meet with country officials in person or remotely, or work in the country as a resident adviser. The IMF also offers a global network of regional capacity development centers, and classroom and online training for officials in member countries. Capacity development accounts for around a third of the IMF’s annual spending. External partners finance more than half of the IMF’s capacity development activities through support to regional capacity development centers, thematic funds, and bilateral projects.
Capacity development helps countries in many ways.
Here are some of the areas where the IMF assists member countries through its capacity development work:
The IMF’s policy advice and lending work help it to identify areas where capacity development can have the greatest impact. Capacity development work helps to increase member countries’ understanding and implementation of IMF policy advice.
The IMF Executive Board oversees capacity development to assess its impact and effectiveness. It last reviewed the capacity development strategy in 2024. The IMF is working to improve how it plans and monitors capacity development. It is assisted by evaluations that measure technical assistance and training across the IMF. Evaluations help determine the degree to which technical assistance has improved macroeconomic stability, public finance management systems, financial governance, and the quality of economic statistics. Evaluations also determine whether training has improved job performance of government officials and enhanced their ability to analyze economic developments and assess policy effectiveness.
This page was last updated in April 2025.
