## ppea2022033 - EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ## Source details **Canonical URL:** [ppea2022033 - EXECUTIVE SUMMARY](https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/pp/2022/english/ppea2022033.pdf) ## Other formats - [Markdown version](/-/media/files/publications/pp/2022/english/ppea2022033.pdf.md) - [Structured JSON version](/-/media/files/publications/pp/2022/english/ppea2022033.pdf.json) --- ### INTRODUCTION & OVERALL GOAL - Executive Board endorsed framework for addressing backlog of off-track actions and the Categorization of Open Actions in Management Implementation Plans (MIPs). - Triage framework (approved March 2019) divided open actions into five categories based on root causes and guided tailored remedial measures. - In February 2020, Board placed 24 actions assessed as “off-track” into the triage framework; the Categorization Paper (CP) proposed reformulating eight off-track actions through a new MIP. - Reformulated actions aim to be “SMART” (Specific, Monitorable, Achievable, Relevant and Timebound), address root causes, and embed compliance incentives and accountability mechanisms. - Many reformulated actions are already underway and are expected to be absorbed by current administrative budgets; no significant new or additional resource requests are expected. - Overall objective: strengthen the relationship between the Fund and member countries by addressing management of country assignments, data and confidential information, and analytical work; ensure alignment with IEO recommendations while being realistic and executable within existing resource constraints. ### 1. Tenure and Continuity of Country Teams and Mission Chiefs Findings and Board views: - IEO Recommendation (2013): strengthen continuity of relationship between Fund and member countries. - Original MIP: target three-year average tenure for country assignments, to be monitored by HRD. - Rationale for reformulation: Tenure has hovered around two and a half years and may have been hindered by structural constraints/tradeoffs. - Directors stressed tenure of country teams and mission chiefs remains a key issue and requested comprehensive, attainable measures balancing HR policy trade-offs. - Current Fundwide median tenure of mission chiefs in departments is 2.3 years. - Example: In FY 2019, median mission chief tenure for FCS hovered around 2.5 years, compared to 2.3 years in other country groups. Implementation plan (actions, responsibilities, and timelines): - By end-April 2022: - HRD will revise recruitment guidelines for Heads of Departments and senior hiring managers in ADs to limit intradepartmental hiring of candidates for mission chief positions who have not fulfilled the minimum tenure of 2 years in their current assignments. - HRD will fully implement the Country Information System in Workday to better capture data on tenure of both mission chiefs and desk economists. - Starting June 2022: - ADs will report cases of intradepartmental moves with less than 2 years bi-annually to HRD with explanations (e.g., retirement, health issues). - Starting June 2023: - HRD will brief management on such cases once a year. - By end-June 2022: - HRD will monitor granular data on mission chief and desk economist tenure, including distribution across country groups such as FCS and SDS, and report to management at the summer discussions on the Accountability Framework. - By year-end 2022: - ADs will start targeting median tenure of mission chiefs at 2.7 years as an intermediate operational target during transition toward meeting Fundwide goal of 3-year average tenure. - By December 2022: - Annual reporting by HRD (through Recruitment and Retention Paper and/or Board briefings) on progress in lengthening tenure; first report expected by end-December 2022. - By end-December 2023: - HRD will assess impact of measures, prepare analysis of mission chief and country team turnover, and present it to the Board. - HRD will propose policy options for ensuring adequate tenure on country assignments (including setting the appropriate target, as necessary), aligned with other HR policies (Career Framework and Path, High-Risk Location policy). - Analysis will consider costs and unintended side effects of longer tenure (e.g., staff burnout on intensive program assignments or challenges in FCS). Supporting measures and knowledge sharing: - By December 2022: - HRD and ADs’ Strategic HR Partners will identify best practices on management of tenure and continuity on country teams to promote knowledge sharing and learning. - Peer-learning will seek lessons from departments (for example, MCD) where average tenure is already considerably above the two-year minimum and explore transferability. ### 2. Handover of Country Assignments (Forecasts: Process, Quality and Country Perspectives) Findings and Board views: - IEO Recommendation (2015): enhance processes and incentives for learning from past forecast performance. - 2015 staff survey revealed weak compliance of data management guidelines and handover practices across ADs; high staff dissatisfaction prevented OIA from deeming the action implemented. - Directors endorsed reformulation and underscored importance of promoting knowledge and information sharing between successive mission chiefs and desk economists. Implementation plan — enhancing knowledge and handover practices: - KMU will conduct a peer-learning event on ADs’ handover practices and disseminate conclusions and background materials to ADs by April 2022. - By July 2022: - ADs, in collaboration with KMU, will refine and harmonize their standard procedures for country assignment handover and publish them on ADs’ websites, accessible Fund-wide. - By October 2022: - HRD and ADs will revise the Fund-wide Guidance Note on Objective Setting in the APR to include examples on how to set objectives related to handover practices for mission chiefs and desk economists. - By October 2023: - KMU and ADs will establish a regular monitoring mechanism through a survey of mission chiefs and desk economists to assess implementation of handover standards and gauge staff satisfaction. - Starting January 2024: - Staff will inform management and Executive Directors about survey results and measures departments have taken and intend to take. - By end-January 2026: - Expectation that number of respondents expressing satisfaction with handover procedures will be considerably higher than a majority for at least two successive years. - Note: APD has developed and rolled out mandatory “handover templates” for mission chiefs, desk economists, research assistants, and coordinators. ### Data Management: CSD, CTS, Metadata Cleanup, and Data Standards Objectives and Board reactions: - IEO Recommendation (2017): re-examine staff incentives in data management. - Directors endorsed reformulations and supported focused efforts to bring data actions back on track given rapid advances in data management technologies. Implementation plan — specifics and timelines: - Common Surveillance Database (CSD): - STA, in collaboration with RES, will present an annual report on use of the CSD to the Data Governance Group (DGG), including statistics on submissions of data and metadata from country teams. First report will be posted on the DGG site by February 2022. - Catalogue of Time Series (CTS): - Update of the CTS was completed in December 2020. The updated CTS (“4.0 version”) will be implemented in STA databases by April 2022. - A final report on the CTS “clean-up” project will be posted on the DGG site by June 2022. DGG expected to sign off on implementation by end of FY 2022. - Metadata cleanup: - Revision embeds relevant DGG milestones. Key milestone: recoding by ADs of the Common Surveillance Indicators (CSI) included in their macro-economic frameworks to ensure compliance with Fund’s coding standards by April 2022. - Regular updates on recoding process will be provided in the CSI status report and posted to the CSD Operations portal. - Data management standards and EBV: - STA (with inputs from KMU) will finalize the ontology and metadata schema for core metadata fields and document these in the Fund’s Enterprise Business Vocabulary (EBV) by April 2022. - The Fund’s new data management and dissemination platform, iData, will leverage the metadata schema for both internal and external dissemination. - STA will continue capacity development assistance to countries to develop detailed and timebound roadmaps to increase data availability and quality. ### Confidential Information and the Fund as Trusted Advisor Findings and rationale: - IEO Recommendation (2013): reduce unnecessary disclosure concerns that may inhibit authorities from using the Fund as a sounding board for informal advice. - Original MIP: staff expected to inform authorities of Fund’s policy on treatment of confidential information and be encouraged to have informal/brainstorming discussions. - Rationale for reformulation: lack of mechanism to assess staff’s treatment of confidential information and difficulty in monitoring informal discussions. Implementation plan — actions and monitoring: - By June 2022: - Detailed information on these policies will be added to the IMF’s external website based on the guidance note on the Transparency Policy; this framework applies to surveillance, programs, and capacity development. - SPR and LEG will re-disseminate guidance to staff on the Fund’s framework for treatment of confidential information and, together with COM, prepare a communication plan for the release of the new website. - By April 2022: - Operational guidance note for Surveillance under Article IV Consultations will reiterate existing framework for treatment of confidential information and encourage staff to share relevant aspects with country authorities. - Monitoring: - Progress will be monitored using the annual OED survey, with expectation that a considerably higher share than the majority would express satisfaction with country teams’ handling of confidential information for at least two successive years, by end-June 2024. - Results will be complemented by a survey of mission chiefs and country authorities as part of the next Interim Surveillance Review, expected in FY 2024. ### Research Quality: Working Papers (WPs) and Selected Issues Papers (SIPs) Findings and rationale: - IEO Recommendation (2012): allocate adequate time and resources to research projects and strengthen incentives to improve quality. - Original MIP: adopt new procedures to ensure quality of WPs. - Rationale for reformulation: measuring and monitoring quality of individual WPs beyond guidelines is neither feasible nor meaningful given limited resources. Implementation plan — actions and timelines: - Departments have strengthened internal procedures: requirement for seminar presentation and departmental review; clearance by senior staff; some require authors to explain incorporation of comments. - By May 2022: - Peer-learning event on departments’ practices for WP review. - By June 2022: - COM will update Fund guidelines on publication of WPs, strengthen review requirements, migrate interdepartmental review to e-Review, and require authors to post responses to comments in e-Review prior to clearance. - By October 2022: - COM will assign identification numbers for published SIPs and create a page on IMF external website for published SIPs. - By December 2022: - Departments will update and post internal procedures for review and approval of WPs on their websites. - By May 2023: - Migrate interdepartmental review of WPs to e-Review as part of Module 4 under the Integrated Digital Workplace (iDW) program. ### Resource Implications - Resource implications of the reformulated actions are expected to be manageable. - Many proposed actions are already part of departments’ work programs and are being absorbed by current administrative budgets. - Actions under this MIP are not expected to give rise to significant new or additional costs. *Source: ppea2022033 - EXECUTIVE SUMMARY* ### EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ### ppea2022033 - EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ### INTRODUCTION - The Executive Board endorsed the framework for addressing the backlog of off-track actions and the Categorization of Open Actions in Management Implementation Plans (MIPs). - The triage framework (approved March 2019) divided open actions into five categories based on root causes and guided tailored remedial measures. - In February 2020, the Board placed 24 actions assessed as “off-track” in the OIA’s Tenth Periodic Monitoring Report into the triage framework; the Categorization Paper (CP) proposed reformulating eight off-track actions through a new MIP. - The eight reformulated actions were not directly or fully tackled in other workstreams and would benefit from continued follow-up through the PMR. - The reformulated actions aim to be “SMART” (Specific, Monitorable, Achievable, Relevant and Timebound) and to address root causes while embedding compliance incentives and accountability mechanisms. - Many reformulated actions are already underway and are expected to be absorbed by current administrative budgets; no significant new or additional resource requests are expected. ### OVERALL GOAL OF THE REFORMULATED ACTIONS - Strengthen the relationship between the Fund and member countries by addressing management of country assignments, data and confidential information, and analytical work. - Ensure reformulated actions remain aligned with IEO recommendations while being realistic, substantive, and executable within existing resource constraints. - Effectiveness and scope of reformulated actions will be reviewed and adjusted as warranted. ### 1. The Role of the Fund as a Trusted Advisor (2013): Country Assignment Tenure - IEO Recommendation: Strengthen the continuity of the relationship between the Fund and member countries. - Management Implementation Plan (original): Target three-year average tenure for country assignments, to be monitored by HRD. - Rationale for Reformulation: Tenure has hovered around two and a half years and may have been hindered by structural constraints/tradeoffs. - Summary of Proposed Reformulation: Continue targeting three-year average tenure while introducing a robust framework to extend tenure beyond the two-year minimum across country groups; enhance monitoring and accountability; assess barriers to longer tenure. Findings and Board Views: - Directors stressed tenure of country teams and mission chiefs remains a key issue and requested comprehensive, attainable measures balancing HR policy trade-offs. - Many Directors emphasized a holistic approach to preserve country knowledge, relationships with authorities, and traction of policy advice. - Some Directors noted the original three-year average target was clear and attainable. Implementation Plan (actions, responsibilities, and timelines): - By end-April 2022: - HRD will revise recruitment guidelines used by Heads of Departments and senior hiring managers in area departments (ADs) to limit intradepartmental hiring of candidates for mission chief positions who have not fulfilled the minimum tenure of 2 years in their current assignments. - HRD will fully implement the Country Information System in Workday to better capture data on tenure of both mission chiefs and desk economists. - Starting June 2022: - ADs will report cases of intradepartmental moves with less than 2 years bi-annually to HRD with explanations (e.g., retirement, health issues). - Starting June 2023: - HRD will brief management on such cases once a year. - HRD reporting: - HRD will monitor granular data on mission chief and desk economist tenure, including distribution across country groups such as FCS and SDS, and report to management at the summer discussions on the Accountability Framework in end-June 2022. - By year-end 2022: - ADs will start targeting median tenure of mission chiefs at 2.7 years as an intermediate operational target during the transition toward meeting the Fundwide goal of 3-year average tenure. - Rationale: median focus incentivizes lengthening tenure across the distribution and avoids undue influence of outliers. - By December 2022: - Annual reporting by HRD (through Recruitment and Retention Paper and/or Board briefings) on progress in lengthening tenure, including analytical country groups focusing on FCS and SDS; first report expected by end-December 2022. - By end-December 2023: - HRD will assess impact of measures, prepare analysis of mission chief and country team turnover (including recent trends and drivers and their effect on tenure), and present it to the Board. - HRD will propose policy options for ensuring adequate tenure on country assignments (including setting the appropriate target, as necessary), aligned with other HR policies (Career Framework and Path, High-Risk Location policy). - Analysis will consider costs and unintended side effects of longer tenure (e.g., staff burnout on intensive program assignments or challenges in FCS). Supporting measures and knowledge sharing: - By December 2022: - HRD and ADs’ Strategic HR Partners will identify best practices on management of tenure and continuity on country teams to promote knowledge sharing and learning. - Peer-learning will seek lessons from departments (for example, MCD) where average tenure is already considerably above the two-year minimum and explore transferability. - Data context: - Current Fundwide median tenure of mission chiefs in departments is 2.3 years. - Example: In FY 2019, median mission chief tenure for FCS hovered around 2.5 years, compared to 2.3 years in other country groups; averages for FCS were less than the overall average due to a few cases of very long tenure. ### 2. IMF Forecasts: Process, Quality and Country Perspectives (2015): Handover of Country Assignments - IEO Recommendation: Enhance processes and incentives for learning from past forecast performance. - Management Implementation Plan (original): Issue guidelines establishing minimum requirements and recommending best practices for the handover of country assignments. - Rationale for Reformulation: A 2015 staff survey revealed weak compliance of data management guidelines and handover practices across ADs; high staff dissatisfaction with handover practices prevented OIA from deeming the action implemented. - Summary of Proposed Reformulation: Foster knowledge-sharing and identify minimum requirements for successful handover; disseminate best practices; set standard procedures for country-assignment handover; establish regular monitoring mechanisms. *Prepared by Juan Yépez Albornoz (lead), Linda Bisman, Yiqun Wu (all SPR), and Roberto Fernandes Guimaraes-Filho (HRD), in collaboration with Linda Kean (COM), Roman Didenko (KMU), Julianne Ams (LEG), Benjamin Fosu (OIA), and Laurence Allain (STA), under overall guidance of Kenneth Kang and Natalia Tamirisa (both SPR) and Christine Kamunge (HRD). March 2, 2022.* ### 6. Complementing the above actions on tenure and in line with the Board’s guidance, the ### 6. Complementing the above actions on tenure and in line with the Board’s guidance, the ### Board views on handover of country assignments - Directors agreed with the need to reformulate the action related to the handover of country assignments. - Directors underscored the importance of promoting knowledge and information sharing between successive mission chiefs and desk economists to ensure smooth functioning of the institution and sustain a productive relationship with authorities. - Directors noted that robust handover and knowledge transfer practices are important complements to leverage current technology and knowledge management practices. - Some Directors mentioned that the handover of information can be improved by setting internal standards and structures. ### Implementation Plan — enhancing knowledge and handover practices - KMU will conduct a peer-learning event on ADs’ handover practices for country assignments, where ADs can showcase their approaches (especially recent innovations by APD) and identify minimum requirements for successful handover. By April 2022, KMU will disseminate conclusions and background materials from the event to ADs. - Drawing on conclusions from the peer-learning event, ADs, in collaboration with KMU, will refine and harmonize their standard procedures for country assignment handover, as necessary. The revised procedures will be published on ADs’ websites and accessible Fund-wide, by July 2022. - HRD and ADs will revise the Fund-wide Guidance Note on Objective Setting in the APR to include examples on how to set objectives related to handover practices for mission chiefs and desk economists, by October 2022. - KMU and ADs will establish a regular monitoring mechanism through a survey of mission chiefs and desk economists to assess the implementation of country assignment handover standards, gauge staff satisfaction, and refine standard procedures as necessary, by October 2023. - Staff will inform management and Executive Directors (EDs) about survey results, describing measures that departments will have already taken to improve handover and any additional steps they intend to take, starting in January 2024. - After that, staff will monitor progress using the annual survey of the Office of the Executive Directors (OED) and staff surveys, with the expectation that the number of respondents expressing satisfaction with handover procedures will be considerably higher than a majority for at least two successive years, by end-January 2026. - Note: APD has developed and rolled out mandatory “handover templates” for mission chiefs, desk economists, research assistants, and coordinators. ### IEO Recommendation (2017) — Common Surveillance Database (CSD) - IEO Recommendation: Re-examine the staff’s structure of incentives in data management. - Management Implementation Plan: Incentivize the use of the Common Surveillance Database (CSD). - Rationale for Reformulation in Categorization Paper: This action is not aligned with the “SMART” principles, as it does not tackle its intended objective (i.e., improvement in data management) and cannot be monitored in a meaningful way. - Summary of Proposed Reformulation: Monitor the CSD use, with periodic reports on usage delivered to the Fund’s Data Governance Group (DGG), which will also assess progress in integration of the CSD with ADs’ workflow. ### IEO Recommendation (2017) — Catalogue of Time Series (CTS) - IEO Recommendation: Re-examine the staff’s structure of incentives in data management. - Management Implementation Plan: Update the Catalogue of Time Series (CTS). - Rationale for Reformulation in Categorization Paper: This action is not aligned with the “SMART” principle, which makes progress difficult to monitor while its measure of success is unclear. - Summary of Proposed Reformulation: Update the CTS, drawing from the findings from the 2020 review of the CTS. ### IEO Recommendation (2017) — Metadata Cleanup - IEO Recommendation: Re-examine the staff’s structure of incentives in data management. - Management Implementation Plan: Undertake a metadata cleanup. - Rationale for Reformulation in Categorization Paper: This action does not allow a determination as to when it would be deemed implemented. The ongoing cleanup process is a comprehensive task, involving over 200 databases. - Summary of Proposed Reformulation: Embed the metadata cleanup in the relevant milestones of the Data Governance Group (DGG). ### IEO Recommendation (2017) — Data Management Standards - IEO Recommendation: Re-examine the staff’s structure of incentives in data management. - Management Implementation Plan: Adopt Fund-wide data management standards. - Rationale for Reformulation in Categorization Paper: This action involves a long-term plan and is too broadly worded. Adopting Fund-wide data management standards is likely to remain a long-lived effort, particularly as data issues and needs evolve. - Summary of Proposed Reformulation: Break down the process of “adopting data standards,” provide substantive milestones regarding metadata standards and document them in the Enterprise Business Vocabulary (EBV). ### Objectives and Board reactions on data management reformulations - In line with the IEO’s and Executive Board’s guidance, the reformulated actions aim to mainstream best practices in data management, ensure adequate maintenance and monitoring of key databases and provide substantive milestones for bringing open actions related to data management back on track. - Directors endorsed the reformulation, noting that most of the actions regarding the Fund’s data are still open, as several have seen their target date postponed and most have faced implementation challenges. - Directors supported focused efforts towards bringing these actions back on track, especially in the light of rapid advances in data management technologies. - Some Directors indicated they would approach the forthcoming Review of Data Provision to the Fund with these open actions top of mind. ### Implementation Plan — data management specifics and timelines - STA, in collaboration with RES, will present an annual report on the use of the CSD to the DGG. The report will include statistics on submissions of data and metadata from country teams to allow the DGG to monitor the CSD’s central role for flagship publications (for example, WEO) and assess its adequate integration with the workflow in ADs. The first report will be posted on the DGG site by February 2022. - The update of the CTS was completed in December 2020, concluding a three-year process led by the CTS Governance team, comprising staff from RES and STA, with inputs from KMU. The updated version of the CTS (“4.0 version”) will be implemented in STA databases by April 2022. A final report on the CTS “clean-up” project will be posted on the DGG site by June 2022. The DGG is expected to sign off on the implementation by the end of FY 2022. - The revision to “undertake a metadata cleanup” embeds relevant DGG milestones. One key milestone (to be completed by April 2022) is the recoding by ADs of the Common Surveillance Indicators (CSI) included in their macro-economic frameworks, to ensure compliance with the Fund’s coding standards. Regular updates on the recoding process will be provided in the CSI status report and posted to the CSD Operations portal. - For adoption of Fund-wide data management standards, STA (with inputs from KMU) will finalize the ontology and metadata schema for core metadata fields and document these in the Fund’s Enterprise Business Vocabulary (EBV) by April 2022. - The Fund’s new data management and dissemination platform, iData, will leverage the metadata schema for both internal and external dissemination. - STA will continue to support countries through capacity development assistance to develop detailed and timebound roadmaps to increase data availability and quality. ### IEO Recommendation (2013) — Confidential Information and the Fund as Trusted Advisor - IEO Recommendation: Reduce unnecessary disclosure concerns that may inhibit authorities from using the Fund as a true sounding board for informal advice at an early stage when formulating their policies. - Management Implementation Plan: Staff will be expected to inform country authorities of the Fund’s policy on the treatment of confidential information. Staff will be encouraged to have informal/brainstorming discussions with country authorities in the course of policy discussions. - Rationale for Reformulation in Categorization Paper: There is no mechanism to assess staff’s treatment of confidential information, nor whether and how this is discussed with country authorities. Informal/brainstorming discussions are difficult to monitor given the qualitative element to such discussions and may not always be possible or appropriate. - Summary of Proposed Reformulation: Increase transparency on the Fund’s framework and policies on the treatment of confidential information and re-disseminate guidance to staff regarding engagement with country authorities on these matters. ### Implementation Plan — confidential information actions and monitoring - Detailed information on these policies will be added to the IMF’s external website by June 2022, based on the description of the Fund’s existing framework for the treatment of confidential information, as contained in the guidance note on the Transparency Policy. This framework applies to all activities, including surveillance, programs, and capacity development. - SPR and LEG will re-disseminate guidance to staff on the Fund’s framework for the treatment of confidential information and encourage staff to leverage the information in the Fund’s website in surveillance, program, and capacity development discussions with authorities. Together with COM, SPR and LEG will prepare a communication plan for the release of the new website. - The operational guidance note for Surveillance under Article IV Consultations, upcoming in April 2022, will reiterate the existing framework for treatment of confidential information and encourage staff to share the relevant aspects of this framework with country authorities during Article IV Consultations. - Progress will be monitored using the annual OED survey, with the expectation that a considerably higher share than the majority of respondents would express satisfaction with country teams’ handling of confidential information for at least two successive years, by end-June 2024. - Results will be complemented by a survey of mission chiefs and country authorities as part of the next Interim Surveillance Review, expected to take place in FY 2024. ### IEO Recommendation (2012) — Research and the IMF: Working Papers (WPs) - IEO Recommendation: Management and staff need to allocate adequate time and resources to each research project. The IMF needs clear standards for technical quality of different research projects [....] incentives to improve the quality of research should be strengthened. - Management Implementation Plan: Adopt new procedures to ensure the quality of working papers (WPs). - Rationale for Reformulation in Categorization Paper: Guidelines on publication of WPs were introduced in 2012. However, measuring and monitoring the quality of individual WPs beyond these guidelines is neither feasible nor meaningful from a cost-benefit analysis and in light of limited resources. - Summary of Proposed Reformulation: Identify and disseminate good practices on the departmental review of WPs; update Fund guidelines on publication of WPs and departmental procedures on the review of WPs; increase transparency and accountability for the interdepartmental review of WPs; and improve outlets for disseminating country analytical work. ### Implementation Plan — Working Papers reformulation and timelines - Departments have strengthened their internal procedures for the review of WPs. Most departments’ procedures now include a requirement that papers are presented at an analytical seminar, and/or reviewed within the department before being sent out for review by other relevant departments and/or interdepartmental groups. In all departments, WPs are required to be cleared by a senior staff member. Some departments require that authors explain how they have incorporated comments received during the review process and at seminars. Before publishing WPs, COM may also request additional review by departments and/or interdepartmental groups. - A peer-learning event on departments’ various practices for the WP review is expected to take place by May 2022 to identify good practices and appropriate standards. - COM will update Fund guidelines on publication of WPs and disseminate them by June 2022. Revisions will strengthen requirements for publication of WPs and improve transparency and accountability of the WP review process, including by migrating the interdepartmental review of WPs to the e-Review platform and requiring authors to post their response to comments in e-Review prior to clearance by the authoring department. Revisions will also clarify requirements for information-sharing with EDs, including flexibility to share papers with OED at the same time as sending them for the interdepartmental review. - Departments will update their internal procedures for the review and approval of WPs, as necessary, to reflect revisions in Fund guidelines on publication of WPs and relevant lessons from the peer-learning event. Departments will post their internal procedures on their websites, by December 2022. - COM will assign identification numbers for published Selected Issues Papers (SIPs) and create a page on the IMF’s external website for published SIPs, by October 2022. Consideration will be given to extending the indexing of published SIPs retroactively, subject to resource availability. ### Resource implications - Resource implications of the above reformulated actions are expected to be manageable. - Many of the proposed actions are already part of departments’ work programs, and as such are being absorbed by current administrative budgets. - Actions under this MIP are not expected to give rise to significant new or additional costs. *Source: ppea2022033 - 6. Complementing the above actions on tenure and in line with the Board’s guidance, the* ### 1. Strengthen thecontinuity of therelationship betweenthe Fund andmember countries. ### 1. Strengthen the continuity of the relationship between the Fund and member countries ### Tenure and continuity of country teams and mission chiefs - MIP Action: Target three years average tenure for country assignments to be monitored by HRD. - Reformulated emphasis: Balance tradeoffs; leverage HR Strategy initiatives (forthcoming Career Playbook and Mobility Framework and Career Paths for Economists expected in FY2020); draw lessons from MCD’s staffing model and departments with eased rotation pressures. - Board and Director views: - Directors broadly endorsed reformulation; tenure of the country team and mission chief is a key issue. - Several Directors requested realistic, nuanced approaches and concrete proposals on the role of country team turnover in the CSR and HR strategy. - Some Directors noted the original formulation was clear and attainable. - Reformulated implementation actions, timelines, and accountabilities: 1. Revise recruitment guidelines for Heads of Departments and senior hiring managers in Area Departments (ADs) to limit intradepartmental hiring of candidates for mission chiefs who have not met the minimum tenure of 2 years in their current assignments by end-April 2022. - Starting June 2022, ADs will report cases of intradepartmental moves with less than 2 years bi-annually to HRD, with an explanation. - Starting June 2023, HRD will brief management once a year on such cases. - Accountability: HRD, ADs. 2. Complete implementation of the Country Information System in Workday to better capture data on tenure of country team members and mission chiefs by end-April 2022. - Accountability: HRD, ADs. 3. Enhance monitoring of metrics, including by analytical country groups, with emphasis on FCS and SDS, at the summer Accountability Framework (AF) discussions in end-June 2022. - Maintain expectation that departments should aim for the three-year average tenure; start targeting median tenure for mission chiefs at 2.7 years as an intermediate operational target. - Compile best practices of ADs on ensuring staff median tenure in country assignments is above the minimum of 2 years and disseminate them among ADs by end-December 2022. - Accountability: HRD, ADs. 4. Start annual reporting to the Board of data on mission chief and desk-economist tenure, including by analytical country groups, with emphasis on FCS and SDS, through HRD’s Recruitment and Retention Paper and/or Board briefings, by end-December 2022. - Accountability: HRD, ADs. 5. Prepare an analysis of issues surrounding mission chief and country team turnover, including recent trends and drivers and their effect on tenure in country assignments. Propose policy options and targets, if necessary, for ensuring adequate tenure on country assignments, aligned with other HR policies (including Career Framework and Path and HRL policy) and present it to the Board by end-December 2023. - Accountability: HRD. ### Enhance processes and incentives for learning from past forecast performance and handovers - MIP Action: Issue guidelines establishing minimum requirements and recommending best practices for the handover of country assignments. - Reformulated emphasis: Enhance knowledge and information-sharing practices across successive country teams; leverage KMU efforts to boost Fund-wide knowledge management. - Reformulated implementation actions, timelines, and accountabilities: 1. Conduct a peer-learning event on area departments’ handover practices for country assignments and disseminate key conclusions and background materials among area departments by April 2022. - Accountability: KMU, ADs. 2. Drawing on peer-learning lessons, set area departments’ standard procedures for country assignment handover and disseminate them on area departments’ websites by July 2022. - Accountability: KMU, ADs. 3. Revise the Fund-wide Guidance Note on Objective Setting in the APR to include examples on setting objectives related to handover practices for mission chiefs and desk economists by October 2022. - Accountability: HRD, ADs. 4. Complementing annual OED surveys, establish a regular monitoring mechanism through a survey of mission chiefs and desk economists to assess progress with implementation of handover standards and gauge staff satisfaction by October 2023. - Inform management about survey results and describe measures departments have taken and additional intended steps starting in January 2024. - Monitor progress with the expectation that the number of respondents expressing satisfaction with handover procedures will be considerably higher than a majority for at least two successive years, by end-January 2026. - Accountability: KMU, ADs. ### Reexamine staff incentives and data management - MIP Actions: - Incentivize the use of the Common Surveillance Database (CSD). - Update the Catalogue of Time Series (CTS). - Undertake a meta-data cleanup. - Adopt Fund-wide data management standards. - Reformulated implementation actions, timelines, and accountabilities: 1. Present an annual report on the use of the Common Surveillance Database to the Data Governance Group (DGG). The report will include statistics on submissions of data and metadata from country teams to assess CSD’s integration with AD workflows. The first report will be posted on the DGG site by February 2022. - Accountability: RES, STA, DGG. 2. Implement the updated Catalogue of Time Series (“4.0 version”) in STA databases by April 2022. A final report on the CTS clean-up project will be posted on the DGG site by June 2022. The DGG is expected to sign off on implementation by end of FY 2022. - Accountability: DGG, STA. 3. Complete the recoding of the current Common Surveillance Indicators (CSI), documented in the CSI Status Report by April 2022. The DGG will oversee this process and the CSI status report will be posted to the CSD Operations portal. - Accountability: RES, STA, ITD. 4. Finalize the ontology and metadata schema and document these in the Fund’s EBV by April 2022. The Fund’s new data management and dissemination platform, iData, will leverage the metadata schema for internal and external dissemination. - Accountability: STA, KMU. ### Reduce unnecessary disclosure concerns to encourage early informal advice - MIP Action: Staff expected to inform authorities of Fund’s policy on treatment of confidential information and be encouraged to have informal/brainstorming discussions. - Reformulated emphasis: Ensure staff appropriately keeps authorities informed about Fund policies around confidential information; provide written communication and monitoring via OED Survey. - Reformulated implementation actions, timelines, and accountabilities: 1. Create a page on the IMF’s external website with information on the Fund’s policy on the treatment of confidential information, including description of a standardized comfort letter on the Fund’s framework in surveillance, program and capacity development contexts, by June 2022. - Accountability: LEG, SPR, COM. 2. Re-disseminate guidance to staff on the Fund’s framework for treatment of confidential information, encouraging staff to leverage the new website in surveillance, program and capacity development discussions with authorities by June 2022. Prepare a communication plan for the release of the new web page by June 2022. - Accountability: LEG, SPR, [COM]. 3. In the revised guidance note for Surveillance under Article IV Consultations, encourage staff to share relevant aspects of the Fund’s confidential information framework with country authorities during Article IV consultations for program and non-program members by April 2022. - Accountability: SPR. 4. Monitor progress using the annual OED survey, with the expectation that the number of respondents expressing satisfaction with country teams’ handling of confidential data will be considerably higher than a majority for at least two successive years, by June 2024. - Progress in strengthening engagement on confidential information will be assessed in the next review of the Interim Surveillance Review, by end-FY24. - Accountability: SPR. ### Strengthen standards and incentives for research quality - MIP Action: Adopt new procedures to ensure the quality of working papers (WPs). - Reformulated emphasis: Balance nature of WPs and resource constraints with need for quality control; enhance dissemination of guidelines and transparency on departmental procedures for approving WPs. - Reformulated implementation actions, timelines, and accountabilities: 1. Conduct a peer-learning event on departments’ practices for WP review by May 2022. - Accountability: COM, RES, SPR, with ADs and FDs. 2. Update COM guidelines on publication of WPs to strengthen review requirements, clarify procedures for information-sharing with EDs, and reduce publication delays. Disseminate revised guidelines to staff by June 2022. - Accountability: COM with ADs and FDs. 3. Create identification numbers to allow indexing of published Selected Issues Papers (SIPs) and create a page on the IMF’s external website for published SIPs to improve visibility and enable searching in external research bibliographic databases (IDEAS/RePEc) by October 2022. - Accountability: COM. 4. Review and revise departments’ procedures for the review and approval of WPs, as necessary, in light of the peer-learning exercise and post the procedures on departments’ websites by December 2022. - Accountability: ADs, FDs. 5. Migrate the interdepartmental review of WPs to e-Review, including posting authors’ responses to comments prior to final approval by authoring department, as part of Module 4 under the Integrated Digital Workplace (iDW) program, by May 2023. - Accountability: ITD, SPR, COM. *Source: ppea2022033 - 1. Strengthen the continuity of the relationship between the Fund and member countries* --- _Source: https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/pp/2022/english/ppea2022033.pdf_