Press Release No. 23/431

IMF Executive Board Concludes the Thirteenth Periodic Monitoring Report on the Status of Management Implementation Plans in Response to Board-Endorsed IEO Recommendations

December 8, 2023

Washington, DC: The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) concluded the Thirteenth Periodic Monitoring Report (PMR) on the Status of Management Implementation Plans (MIPs) in Response to Board-Endorsed Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) Recommendations.

Since being instituted in January 2007, the PMR has been reporting on the status of implementation of Board-endorsed IEO recommendations. The Thirteenth PMR assessed the progress made over the past year on 95 actions contained in 11 MIPs. These include two new MIPs issued in response to IEO evaluations issued after the Twelfth PMR .

The Thirteenth PMR concluded that further progress has been made, since the last PMR, with the implementation of management actions despite intense competing work pressures. The pace of implementation observed in the Thirteenth PMR, with the closure of 23 actions, was faster than the average implementation rate achieved prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Strong progress has been made on actions contained in the MIP in response to the Executive Board-endorsed Categorization of Open Management Actions in Management Implementation Plans. Progress has been somewhat slower in certain actions in response to the IEO evaluations covering IMF Financial Surveillance and Behind the Scenes with Data at the IMF although work is advancing on all these fronts. Further progress has been made in the development of a slippages framework, since the last PMR, through the Board endorsement of the institutional Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) framework, and the deployment of a pilot for the application of the slippages framework.

Executive Board Assessment [1]

Executive Directors welcomed the opportunity to discuss the Thirteenth Periodic Monitoring Report (PMR) on the Status of Management Implementation Plans (MIPs) in Response to Board-Endorsed Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) Recommendations. Directors broadly endorsed the assessment contained in the PMR.

Directors appreciated the further progress made in the implementation of management actions since the last PMR, which they noted was above the pre-pandemic average but slower relative to the previous PMR. Directors recognized that several factors contributed to this slower implementation , including: the backdrop of intense competing work pressures; a concentration on actions of a more operational nature; the relatively high implementation rate recorded in the period covered by the Twelfth PMR; that some actions still open entail complex or additional processes; and that many of the management actions envisaged in two new MIPs have target implementation dates in the future. They also acknowledged that many of the remaining open actions depend on the implementation of some important reviews/key steps that are expected to be completed in or soon after December 2023.

Directors noted that of the 72 actions that remain open after this Thirteenth PMR, 13 actions are more than one year—a number of which are several years—past their target implementation dates. They therefore urged for continued prioritization and faster progress in a range of areas, including those relating to the financial sector workforce analysis and talent inventory, data items, social protection, and small developing states (SDS). Directors supported the modified definition of overdue actions, starting from the Fourteenth PMR, to include all actions that are not completed by the originally agreed-upon implementation due dates.

Directors welcomed the progress made in developing a slippages framework since the last PMR. They took note of the experience to date from the use of the MIP on the “IMF’s Emergency Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic” as a pilot and that a recommendation to move forward with the slippages framework on a more permanent basis will be issued following the full implementation of the pilot MIP.