Policy Papers
2008
March 28, 2008
Reform of Quota and Voice in the International Monetary Fund-Draft Report of the Executive Board to the Board of Governors
Description: This report sets out a proposal for a second-round package of reforms consistent with the framework agreed in the Singapore Resolution and, to that end, recommends that the Board of Governors approve the resolution that is appended to this Report (the "Resolution").
March 21, 2008
Evaluation of the U.K. DFID-Financed Technical Assistance GDDS Project for Selected Anglophone African Countries (2001-06)
Description: This review of Phase I of the technical assistance (TA) General Data Dissemination System (GDDS) project (2001–2006) for 15 Anglophone African countries1—funded by the U.K. Department for International Development (DFID) and executed jointly by the Fund and the World Bank—(henceforth, referred to as the Anglophone African (AAf) project) focuses mostly on the components that were implemented by the Fund’s Statistics Department (STA). The review draws on various internal and periodic evaluations of project execution and reports by technical assistance providers. The GDDS—part of the Fund’s Data Standards Initiative—defined the framework for the AAf project. The main goal of the project was initially limited to assisting countries to become participants in the GDDS via preparatory workshops and development of metadata and plans for improvement. The goal was subsequently expanded to providing TA and promoting greater awareness and regional cooperation.
March 20, 2008
The FY2009-FY2011 Medium-Term Administrative, Restructuring, and Capital Budgets
Description: This paper presents for Executive Board approval proposals for the FY 09–11 medium–term administrative budget (MTB), a one-time multi-year appropriation to meet the costs of institutional restructuring (Restructuring Budget), and the FY 09 Capital Budget in the context of the FY 09–11 capital plan. It also proposes to carry forward the unused resources from the FY 08 administrative budget into the Restructuring Budget, to help defray the costs of the institutional restructuring.
March 17, 2008
Review of Data Provision to the Fund for Surveillance Purposes
Description: This paper reviews how well members are providing the data the Fund needs, how well staff is handling issues of data inadequacy, and how the Fund’s data needs are evolving. The aim is to identify possible ways of improving data provision or, where data provision can only improve as the result of protracted capacity building, to ensure that surveillance takes due account of data inadequacies.
March 17, 2008
Review of Data Provision to the Fund for Surveillance Purposes - Informational Annexes
Description:
Informational Annexes:
I. Article VIII, Section 5. Furnishing of Information
II. Table of Common Indicators Required for Surveillance
III. Data Provision Trends and Implications of the 2004 Decision
IV. Sample Selection for In-Depth Analysis of Treatment of Data Issues in Staff Reports
V. Survey of Data Provision to the Fund for Surveillance for Fund Mission Chiefs
VI. Recommended Methodologies for Data Provision
VII. Other Ongoing Data Initiatives
VIII. Security and Reporting Procedures for the Currency Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves (COFER) Database
IX. Recent Data Improvements Through the Standardized Report Forms (SRFs)
March 3, 2008
The Fund's Engagement in Fragile States and Post-Conflict Countries - A Review of Experience - Issues and Options
Description: The international community has stepped up efforts to devise a broad and coordinated approach to engaging more effectively with fragile states, whose economic and social performance is substantially impaired by their weak governance, limited administrative capacity, persistent social tensions, and a tendency to conflict and political instability. Such states increasingly lag behind other low-income countries (LICs) in terms of growth and development, and are at risk of falling into a poverty trap. They are also least likely to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and often receive less aid than warranted by macroeconomic and social needs.
February 29, 2008
Sovereign Wealth Funds - A Work Agenda
Description: Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) are becoming increasingly important in the international monetary and financial system, attracting growing attention. SWFs are government-owned investment funds, set up for a variety of macroeconomic purposes. They are commonly funded by the transfer of foreign exchange assets that are invested long term, overseas. SWFs are not new, and some of the longer-established funds—for example those of Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, and Singapore—have existed for decades. However, high oil prices, financial globalization, and sustained, large global imbalances have resulted in the rapid accumulation of foreign assets particularly by oil exporters and several Asian countries. As a result, the number and size of SWFs are rising fast and their presence in international capital markets is becoming more prominent.
February 26, 2008
Quota and Voice Reform - Key Elements of a Potential Package of Reforms
Description: The IMFC in its October 2007 Communiqué called on the Executive Board to continue its work on quota and voice reform in order to allow agreement on all elements of a reform package by Spring 2008. To facilitate progress toward this goal, this paper suggests the possible contours of such a reform package. The package outlined is intended to be consistent with the objectives set out in the Singapore Resolution (Appendix 1), which were to make significant progress in realigning quota shares with economic weight in the global economy and, equally important, to enhance the participation and voice for low-income countries. It also reflects the further guidance provided in the IMFC’s October 2007 Communiqué, including the goal of agreeing on all elements of the package by Spring 2008.
February 22, 2008
The Fiscal Implications of Climate Change
Description:
This paper reviews the fiscal implications of climate change, and the potential role of the Fund in addressing them. It stresses that:
• The potential fiscal implications are immediate as well as lasting, and liable to affect—in differing forms and degree—all Fund members.
• Climate change is a global externality problem, calling for some degree of international fiscal cooperation…
• …and has features—an intertemporal mismatch between the (early) costs of action to address climate change and (later) benefits, pervasive uncertainties and irreversibilities (including risk of catastrophe), and sharp asymmetries in the effects on different countries—that raise difficult technical and ethical issues, and hinder policy coordination.
• In addition to itself impacting the public finances, climate change calls for deploying fiscal instruments to mitigate its extent and adapt to its remaining effects.
February 1, 2008
Review of Access Policy in the Credit Tranches and Under the Extended Fund Facility and the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility, and Exceptional Access Policy
Description: This paper reviews the Fund’s access policy under its main financing facilities in the General Resources Account (GRA) and under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF). It responds to the Board’s request for a periodic review of the access policy, that is, the rules and practices that govern the amount of financing the Fund makes available to its members.