Forecasting models are crucial to how the Fund performs its role as lender and global economic monitor, but the assumptions underpinning these models are frequently derided as unrealistic.
Conditionality
Finance
Analysis
IMF gets emerging markets wrong, again
The Fund has had to conduct another embarrassing “U-turn” to warn of the growing risks to the stability of developing countries, while cautiously accepting the need for capital controls in principle, but not necessarily in practice.
Conditionality
News
Inequality: IMF fails to listen to itself
While NGO Oxfam criticised the IMF for failing to learn lessons of the past in its approach to European austerity, IMF research on inequality produced findings opposite to IMF programme demands for borrowers.
Finance
Commentary
Why the IMF must cancel Pakistan's debt
Alongside development and economic issues, Pakistan will be tackling the debt repayments that the country is scheduled to make in the next two years and beyond thanks to a $6.64 billion IMF loan agreement. The debt burden is suffocating public spending.
IFI governance
Analysis
BRICS without mortar
On the sidelines of this week's G20 summit, BRICS nations are expected to reveal details of how their proposed $100 billion alternative to the IMF will operate.
Conditionality
News
IMF-sanctioned reforms "hurting Malawians"
Voice Mohne, chair of the council for non-governmental organisations in Malawi, declared to President Joyce Banda at a May public meeting that the adoption of the "full set of IMF reforms" by Banda's government was "too much for an average Malawian to absorb", because "there is no meaningful safety net mechanism".
Social services
Analysis
IMF's Greek mea culpa
In June the IMF released an ex post assessment of its 2010 lending programme to Greece which described a series of errors and found that the Fund consciously chose to break its own rules on the sustainability of the programme.
Knowledge
News
Education for all?
World Bank president, Jim Yong Kim has put global education on his priority list, however major ideological differences are emerging between education coalitions about whether this should be delivered through a private or public model.
Finance
News
IMF champions growth
As global economic risks and stagnation in major economies are expected to persist, the IMF's rhetoric is increasingly anti-austerity, reflecting changing priorities in member states. However, states where IMF policy influence is greatest, spending cuts continue.
Infrastructure
News
IMF push for MENA subsidy reforms
The IMF signed a deal with Tunisia in June, after its renewed attempt to lend to Egypt failed in April, while civil society remained concerned about the legitimacy and transparency of the negotiations.
