## Statement by the Managing Director on the Independent Evaluation Office Report on Recurring Issues from a Decade of Evaluation: Lessons for the IMF

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### Overview and agreement with the IEO report
- The Managing Director thanks the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) for the report and states broad agreement with its findings.
- The report identifies recurring issues that are to varying degrees inherent to the nature of the IMF and represent ongoing challenges.
- Management and staff remain fully committed to addressing these issues.

### Organizational silos and interdepartmental coordination
- Breaking down organizational silos and promoting interdepartmental coordination has been a major focus of IMF management.
- Measures highlighted:
  - Increased use of interdepartmental task forces, including for the production of spillover and pilot external sector reports.
  - Introduction of a structured review process for all policy papers involving interdepartmental discussions at the concept note and (in many cases) the mid-point stage, in addition to customary interdepartmental review of the final paper.
  - Introduction of the accountability framework for department heads to foster greater collaboration.
  - Nearly half of all policy items in the work program of the Executive Board are now being authored jointly by two or more departments.
  - The forthcoming Triennial Surveillance Review (TSR) will explore ways to further strengthen interdepartmental coordination to support integrated surveillance.

### Attention to risks and uncertainty
- Assessments of risks and uncertainty in program design and surveillance are now routine.
- Current focus: ensuring consistent application by staff of the tools developed for assessing risks and uncertainty.
- Strengthened operational support to member countries identified as high risk/priority in periodic vulnerability exercises.
- A dedicated risk management unit was recently established to enhance risk culture within the institution.
- Directors will have the opportunity to discuss Management’s broader approach for the Fund’s overall risk management architecture in the context of the forthcoming Board discussion of the 2014 Risk Report of the Advisory Committee on Risk Management.

### Country and institutional context; staff continuity and diversity
- Measuring progress in providing greater country and institutional context is difficult.
- Steps taken:
  - Moving toward a three-year tenure for country assignments to facilitate acquisition of country-specific knowledge by economists and mission chiefs.
  - Ongoing efforts to enhance diversity in the IMF, as described in the Managing Director’s last Global Policy Agenda.
- Tailoring policy advice to specific circumstances of member countries remains a key objective and will be a main theme in the forthcoming TSR.

### Evenhandedness, transparency, and governance
- Evenhandedness is difficult to define and measure; the Fund takes concerns about lack of evenhandedness (real or perceived) very seriously.
- Commitments:
  - The forthcoming TSR will analyze the nature and extent of any lack of evenhandedness in Fund surveillance.
  - The Fund will continue periodic reviews of evenhandedness in program design.
  - Continued strengthening of communication and outreach to the public to preempt misperceptions, especially in the context of Fund programs.
- Recent transparency and governance actions:
  - The 2013 Review of the IMF’s Transparency Policy extended a stronger publication regime to all staff reports on the use of Fund resources and set incentives for faster publication.
  - Monitoring of staff report modifications was enhanced to provide added comfort that policy is applied in an evenhanded manner.
  - Continued commitment to support the completion of the 2010 governance reform agenda to strengthen Executive Board guidance and oversight.

### Monitoring, follow-up, and stance on periodic reporting
- Management and staff will continue monitoring and addressing the recurring issues identified by the evaluation, taking into account trade-offs from competing mandates and resource constraints.
- Recommendation supported:
  - Repeat every five years a similar IEO report identifying major recurrent issues from past evaluations and assessing progress in resolving them.
- Position opposed:
  - The Managing Director does not support preparing a separate status report by staff two years after the IEO evaluation, arguing it would yield few new insights and would not justify the relatively high associated resource cost in the tight current budget environment.
- The Board will continue to be informed through policy reviews and administrative papers about specific actions being taken to address recurrent issues identified in the IEO report.

*Statement delivered at the Executive Board Meeting, June 11, 2014.*

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_Source: https://www.imf.org/-/media/websites/imf/imported-full-text-pdf/external/np/pp/eng/2014/_061114a.pdf_