Press Release No. 12/285

Press Release: External Evaluation of the Independent Evaluation Office of the IMF Gets Underway

August 2, 2012

The external evaluators of the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are holding their first round of discussions in Washington, D.C. on August 2-3. The panel is meeting with IMF management, Executive Directors and staff, as well as with the IEO’s senior officials and the director of the World Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group.

The IMF Executive Board appointed the high-level panel to undertake the second external evaluation of the IEO. When the IEO was established by the IMF Executive Board in 2001, it was envisaged that periodic external evaluations would be carried out to assess its effectiveness and to consider possible improvements to its structure, mandate, operational modalities, or Terms of Reference. The first external evaluation was commissioned and discussed by the IMF Executive Board in 2006; the second evaluation will be concluded by the end of the year.

The evaluation will assess how successfully the IEO has met its goals to help enhance the learning culture within the Fund, promote greater understanding of the work of the Fund throughout the membership, and support the IMF Executive Board’s institutional governance and oversight responsibilities. The evaluators have discretion in the conduct of their investigation within this broad contour.

The panel is chaired by José Antonio Ocampo and includes two other members: Stephen Pickford and Cyrus Rustomjee. Short biographical statements follow in alphabetical order:

José Antonio Ocampo is a former United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs and Executive Secretary for the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. He has also served as Colombia’s Minister of Finance and as the Minister of Agriculture. He is currently a Professor and Member of the Committee on Global Thought at Columbia University.

Stephen Pickford recently retired from the UK Treasury where he was Managing Director (International and Finance), and G7 and G20 Finance Deputy, from 2007 to 2009. Prior to this he held posts as both Director for Europe, and Director for International Finance in the UK Treasury, with responsibility for international finance issues. From 1998 to 2001 he was the UK’s Executive Director on the Boards of the IMF and World Bank. In 2011 he was one of the external contributors to the IMF Triennial Surveillance Review, writing the report on IMF surveillance products.

Cyrus Rustomjee is Director of Economic Affairs at the Commonwealth Secretariat. He is a former Chairperson of South Africa’s Financial Services Board and a former Managing Director at the Centre for Economic Training in Africa. He was also an Executive Director of the IMF during 2000-2002. He headed the G-20 Secretariat during South Africa’s term as G-20 Chair in 2007.