Frequently Asked Questions on Governance Diagnostic

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Governance Diagnostics (GD) analyze and recommend actions for addressing corruption vulnerabilities and strengthening integrity & governance in IMF member countries.
A GD analyzes and recommends actions for addressing systemic corruption vulnerabilities and strengthening integrity & governance in IMF member countries.
GDs examine the severity of corruption vulnerabilities across the six core state functions:
- fiscal governance
- central bank governance and operations
- financial sector oversight
- rule of law
- market regulation
- AML-CFT
GDs also assess the effectiveness of anti-corruption legal and institutional frameworks.
Following analysis, GDs propose prioritized and sequenced advice on systematically addressing the vulnerabilities.
Note: In some cases, referred to as Governance Diagnostic Assessment or Governance and Corruption Diagnostic.

A GD is voluntary for both a member country and the IMF, and is an IMF capacity development activity.
Initiation:
- Initiated on request from authorities and subject to resource availability.
- IMF staff discuss the scope and timing of delivering a GD up front with the authorities.
- A call for a GD may arise during IMF lending and surveillance activities; it remains a voluntary exercise in such cases.
GDs are conducted through a series of stages:
- scoping mission — frames the remit of the main mission and reaches agreement with authorities on focus areas;
- main mission — centers on assessing substantive governance weaknesses and corruption vulnerabilities within core state functions;
- desk work — leads to production of a comprehensive report outlining findings and recommendations.
Genuine cooperation between IMF staff and authorities is essential, requiring authorities’ commitment to constructively organize missions and provide timely access to all necessary information.
GDs are guided by the IMF’s 2018 Framework on Enhanced Engagement on Governance.

A member country is expected to fully own the reform program and address governance and corruption vulnerabilities identified in a Diagnostic.
Authorities are expected during production to provide access to all necessary legal and administrative documents and facilitate the GD mission team’s contacts with:
- civil society organizations
- the private sector
- think tanks
- academia
GDs are expected to be published to encourage transparency and facilitate extensive support from all key stakeholders on governance reforms, although publication is at the prerogative of country authorities.
Practices observed:
- Several authorities have also published GDs on their own web sites.
- Some GD reports have been published as the authorities’ own report, prepared in collaboration with the IMF.
- Prior to undertaking a Diagnostic, authorities often commit to publishing the GD report and/or the reform plan derived from the Diagnostic.
GD reports draw heavily on local knowledge and expertise and engage a variety of stakeholders and development partners to inform findings and recommendations.
In some countries, civil society organizations remain actively involved in monitoring implementation of GD recommendations and assessing the impact of reform.

Since 2018, twenty-one GD Reports have been finalized.
Recent Diagnostics include Haiti, Sri-Lanka, Mauritania, Cameroon, Zambia, and Benin.
Ten Diagnostics are currently ongoing, and others are under consideration.
Findings of the Diagnostic inform:
- authorities’ governance and anti-corruption reforms
- IMF-supported programs
- surveillance in the context of Article IV missions
- capacity development work
Some Diagnostic recommendations become conditionality in subsequent IMF-supported programs.