Policy Papers
2020
June 10, 2020
Staff Operational Guidelines On Dissemination Of Technical Assistance Information
Description: The Staff Operational Guidelines on Dissemination of Technical Assistance Information have been updated to reflect the authority reserved to Fund management and TA recipients to provide explicit consent for the dissemination of TA information in scenarios not specifically envisaged in these guidelines.
May 29, 2020
FY 2021-FY 2023 Medium-Term Budget
Description: On April 27, 2020, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved the IMF’s administrative and capital budgets for financial year (FY) 2021, beginning May 1, 2020, and took note of indicative budgets for FY 2022–23.
May 22, 2020
Implementation Plan in Response to the Board-Endorsed Recommendations from the IEO Evaluation Report on IMF Advice on Unconventional Monetary Policies
Description: This Management Implementation Plan was prepared before COVID-19 became a global pandemic and resulted in unprecedented strains in global trade, commodity and financial markets. The actions in the plan and their timeline, therefore, do not reflect the implications of these developments and related policy priorities. This MIP includes a package of self-reinforcing actions that aim to: • Strengthen in-house expertise on monetary policy • Deepen the work on UMP and related policies • Further strengthen financial spillover analysis • Explore ways to enhance the Fund’s traction
May 18, 2020
Measuring Economic Welfare: What and How?
Description: Calls for a more people-focused approach to statistics on economic performance, and concerns about inequality, environmental impacts, and effects of digitalization have put welfare at the top of the measurement agenda. This paper argues that economic welfare is a narrower concept than well-being. The new focus implies a need to prioritize filling data gaps involving the economic welfare indicators of the System of National Accounts 2008 (SNA) and improving their quality, including the quality of the consumption price indexes. Development of distributional indicators of income, consumption, and wealth should also be a priority. Definitions and assumptions can have big effects on these indicators and should be documented. Concerns have also arisen over potentially overlooked welfare growth from the emergence of the digital economy. However, the concern that free online platforms are missing from nominal GDP is incorrect. Also, many of the welfare effects of digitalization require complementary indicators, either because they are conceptually outside the boundary of GDP or impossible to quantify without making uncertain assumptions.
May 1, 2020
Extension of Consultation Cycles Due to COVID-19 Pandemic
Description: To better respond to the unprecedented demand from the membership for financing and crisis support in response to the covid-19 pandemic, there is a temporary postponement of staff’s work on Article IV consultations and mandatory Financial Stability Assessments. To ensure the postponement has no adverse impact of members’ compliance with their obligations, the deadlines for upcoming Article IV consultations and for discussions with currency unions have been extended by 6 months. This paper provides additional background on these temporary arrangements.
April 23, 2020
Implementation Plan in Response to The Board-Endorsed Recommendations From The IEO Evaluation Report on IMF Advice on Unconventional Monetary Policies
Description: The Management Implementation Plan was prepared before COVID-19 became a global pandemic and resulted in unprecedented strains in global trade, commodity, and financial markets. The actions in this plan and their timeline, therefore, do not reflect the implications of these developments and related policy priorities. The actions aim to: Strengthen in-house expertise on monetary policy; Deepen the work on UMP and related policies; Further strengthen financial spillover analysis; Explore ways to enhance the Fund’s traction.
April 22, 2020
IMF COVID-19 Response—A New Short-Term Liquidity Line to Enhance The Adequacy Of The Global Financial Safety Net
Description: The COVID-19 pandemic has created severe disruption in the global financial system, with many emerging market and developing countries (EMDCs) facing liquidity shortages. In the context of intensified demand for liquidity and heightened global uncertainty, staff has revisited the 2017 proposal for a new facility to provide liquidity support to the Fund’s membership. This paper proposes the establishment of a new Short-term Liquidity Line (SLL) as a special facility in the General Resources Account (GRA), based on the key features of the 2017 blueprint.
April 17, 2020
IMF Managing Director's Statement to the Development Committee, April 2020
Description: The global coronavirus outbreak is a crisis like no other and poses daunting challenges for policymakers in many emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs), especially where the pandemic encounters weak public health systems, capacity constraints, and limited policy space to mitigate the outbreak’s repercussions. A severe economic impact in the first half of 2020 is inevitable. Medium-term projections are clouded by uncertainty regarding the pandemic’s magnitude and speed of propagation, as well as the longer-term impact of measures to contain the outbreak, such as travel bans and social distancing. However, most EMDEs are already suffering from disruptions to global value chains, lower foreign direct investment, capital outflows, tighter financing conditions, lower tourism and remittances receipts, and price pressures for some critical imports such as foods and medicines. Commodity exporters have to absorb, in addition, a sharp decline in export prices, notably for oil. Further, in most countries, the coronavirus outbreak is producing unanticipated health spending needs and revenue losses as activity slows. Coping with these challenges is especially difficult for countries with limited administrative capacity, tight external financing constraints and/or already high debt levels, and thus requires substantial support from the international community.
April 17, 2020
Tonga—IMF Assessment Letter for the World Bank
Description: This letter provides IMF staff’s current assessment of Tonga’s macroeconomic conditions, prospects, and policies. The assessment has been requested in relation to the World Bank’s Resilience Development Policy Operation.
April 15, 2020
The Managing Director’s Global Policy Agenda, Spring Meetings 2020: Exceptional Times Exceptional Action
Description: Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva’s Global Policy Agenda, Exceptional Times, Exceptional Action, highlights three priorities for policymakers around the world: protect lives, protect livelihoods, and plan for the recovery. She Says “The reality is that anyone’s fight against the #COVID-19 virus is everyone’s fight. More than ever we need global solidarity, a common resolve, and coordinated international efforts. And with so many countries short on resources, we need to give more support to those most in need,”.