2010: The Year of IMF Reform

IMF Blog, December 28, 2010

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Three major changes were agreed to in 2010 described as “the most important reform in the governance of the institution since its creation.”
For the first time, the combined voting power of the United States and the current European Union members will fall below 50 percent.
The reform is forward-looking, allowing future changes in countries’ growth rates to be incorporated every few years, reducing institutional inertia.
Regional shifts in influence:
- Asia and Latin America will gain in influence in the short term.
- Africa can be accommodated as its economic performance improves.
- Advanced European countries will have fewer seats on the Executive Board but can consolidate positions and become more effective as a group.
Implementation challenges:
- Requires sensitive political commitments by several countries.
- Outcomes depend on how emerging markets choose to use new influence and how receptive traditional powers are.
Implication: The transition is largely symbolic but has potential to change the culture of the institution.

Historical lending evolution:
- The IMF’s first loans in 1947 used a single technique: an immediate currency swap (domestic currency exchanged for a convertible currency, usually U.S. dollars).
- It gradually expanded to include stand-by arrangements, extended arrangements, special terms for commodity price shocks, loans to low-income countries, and other special-use facilities.
- At the end of the 1990s, the Fund had at least ten lending facilities; those in active use required detailed macroeconomic and structural reform programs.
2010 reforms:
- The IMF created lending facilities more suitable for countries with good track records and solid commitments to implement policies on their own.
- Goals: improve the Fund’s ability to avert financial crises, respond more flexibly to borrowers’ needs, and help reduce the stigma of seeking IMF support.
Main challenge: ensure borrowers carry out strong policies, resolve financing difficulties, and repay loans when due.
Past failures: flexibility attempts faltered because weak loan conditions were followed by weak national policies and because conditions were still considered stigmatic.
Ongoing test: finding the right balance between discipline and flexibility.

The general financial resources of the IMF are to be doubled.
This increase is to be matched by a rollback in the Fund’s standing borrowing arrangements.
Immediate effect: not primarily to increase the amount the IMF can lend, but to reduce the need for the Fund to borrow from creditor countries to finance large lending operations.
Future challenge: ensure resources are adequate, used well, and do not substitute for necessary policy reforms.

Current leadership dynamics:
- All of the Fund’s ten Managing Directors have been European.
- All eight of the Deputy Managing Directors (First Deputies since 1994) have been from the United States.
Ongoing effort: make any future competition for the leadership of the IMF more open and fully accessible to candidates without regard to geography.
The Executive Board agreed in principle several years ago to open up the process; building higher political support has been difficult.
Outlook: the IMF is expected to continue evolving to reflect rapid and major transformations in the world economy over the next decade.

Source: 2010: The Year of IMF Reform (James Boughton, December 28, 2010)