A forthcoming Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) evaluation titled ‘The IMF response to the global financial crisis’ evaluation is keenly anticipated as it follows an earlier assessment of the IMF’s role before the 2008 global financial crisis, which criticised the Fund’s surveillance of the economy prior to the beginning of the crisis, (see Update 85). Michael Hammer from UK research institute INTRAC commented on the forthcoming evaluation: “the IEO may want to make use of different sources  beyond the typical IMF working relationships, such as independent research and civil society. This would also help guide the approaches by the IMF itself when seeking to protect its analysis against intellectual capture, self-censorship, groupthink and political pressures which affected, as the 2011 evaluation showed, the design and implementation of its lending in the run up to the financial crisis.”

Details of this evaluation were described in the IEO’s annual report published in August which describes the organisation’s past and future activities. The IEO has launched an additional August valuation: Recurring issues from a decade of evaluation: lessons for the IMF. A draft report is currently available on the IEO website and is open for comments.