STWR - Share The World's Resources

This paper argues that there is no sound rationale for the Fund to be involved in development matters, including long-term lending. A genuine reform of the Fund requires a redirection of its activities, and improvements in its policies and operational modalities.

Yilmaz Akyüz. Intergovernmental Group of 24 research paper, August 2005

Link to the full report

Extract from Introduction:

There have been widespread misgivings about international economic cooperation in recent years even as the need for global collective action has grown because of recurrent financial crises in emerging markets, the increased gap between the rich and the poor, and growing public awareness of and concern with poverty that pervade many countries in the developing world. In this respect the IMF is perhaps the most controversial international organization. Several observers including former Treasury Secretaries of the United States and many NGOs have called for its abolition on grounds that it is no longer needed, or that its interventions in emerging market crises are not only wasteful but also harmful for international economic stability, or that its programs in the third world serve to aggravate rather than alleviate poverty. Others want the IMF to be merged into the World Bank because they see them as doing pretty much the same thing with the same clientele. Many who agree to keep the Fund as an independent institution with a distinct mission call for reform of both what it has been doing and how it has been doing it. All these groups include individuals across a wide spectrum of political opinion, ranging from conservative free marketers to anti-globalizers.

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