Joint CSO letter calls for IMF to strengthen consultation and accountability
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Article summary
Amid ongoing IMF reviews, civil society organisations call for more transparent, inclusive, and consistent engagement, urging the Fund to strengthen consultation practices and adopt binding standards to improve accountability.
A coalition of civil society organisations has called on IMF Management and Executive Directors to ensure that the ongoing review of the 2015 Guidelines on Engagement with Civil Society leads to concrete improvements in practice, including the adoption of a Board-approved framework to make engagement more consistent, transparent, and accountable.
While acknowledging recent efforts by IMF staff to improve outreach, the letter highlights that consultation practices across major policy reviews continue to fall short of the Fund’s own standards. Civil society organisations report limited access to key information, overly restrictive consultation formats, and little clarity on how their inputs are reflected in outcomes.
Drawing on both recent policy consultations and country-level experiences, the signatories stress that engagement often remains ad hoc, takes place too late to influence decisions, and risks privileging a narrow set of actors.
To address these gaps, civil society organisations call on the IMF to:
- Publish clear timelines, terms of reference, and key documents for all policy reviews and consultations,
- Ensure meaningful consultation processes, including adequate timelines, accessible formats, and opportunities for open-ended input,
- Systematically reflect CSO inputs in IMF outputs, including Article IV reports and policy papers,
- Strengthen engagement at country level, including earlier and more inclusive outreach to diverse stakeholders,
- Adopt a Board-approved policy framework to ensure minimum standards for engagement are applied consistently.
These measures are essential to improving the legitimacy, effectiveness, and social sustainability of IMF-supported policies.
