The Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) released the draft issues paper for its planned evaluation of the IMF’s trade policy advice. While past IEO reports have tended to look at whether IMF practice is following policy, the issues paper indicates the evaluation “will aim to move beyond the question of whether the IMF’s role should be more focused and address questions of whether … critics of the IMF’s positions have a solid basis”. That will include criticisms that the IMF’s trade policy advice has not been even handed and that it has constrained developing country policy space (see Update 47). The IEO welcomes comments on the issues paper.