Low-Income Countries
What has the IMF done to help low-income countries during the coronavirus pandemic?
The IMF has acted with unprecedented speed and scale to support low-income countries during the pandemic. The Fund provided financial support to 53 of 69 eligible low-income countries in 2020 and in the first half of 2021, with about US$14 billion disbursed as zero percent interest rate loans from the Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust.
Most of this support was through the Fund’s emergency financing instruments—the Rapid Credit Facility (RCF) and Rapid Financing Instrument (RFI)—which provide immediate, one-time disbursements to countries facing urgent balance of payments needs. The Fund was able to respond to a record number of requests for financial assistance through a series of temporary access limit increases to the RCF and RFI, and temporary increases in the Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT) overall access limits.
IMF Executive Board Concludes 2025 Article IV Consultation with Türkiye
The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) concluded the Article IV consultation with Türkiye.
IMF Staff Concludes Visit to Lebanon
An International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission, led by Ernesto Ramirez Rigo, visited Beirut, Lebanon, from February 10 to 13, 2026, to discuss progress on key economic and financial reforms. At the conclusion of the mission, Mr. Ramirez Rigo made the following statement:
IMF Staff Completes 2026 Article IV Mission to Cameroon
An International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission, headed by Christine Dieterich, visited Cameroon during January 29 to February 12 to conduct the IMF’s 2026 Article IV Consultation discussions.
IMF Executive Board Concludes 2025 Article IV Consultation with Thailand
Thailand’s GDP growth is estimated to have slowed from 2.5 percent in 2024 to 2.1 percent in 2025 and expected to decline further to 1.6 percent in 2026 as external headwinds intensify. Inflation is projected to remain subdued at 0.4 percent in 2026 before gradually rising thereafter.
IMF Executive Board Concludes 2025 Article IV Consultation with Germany
The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) completed the Article IV Consultation for Germany.
IMF Staff Completes 2026 Article IV Mission to Qatar
An International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff team, led by Mr. Nathan Porter, visited Doha during January 25–February 5, 2026 to conduct discussions for the 2026 Article IV consultation. The mission will submit a report to IMF management and Executive Board, which is scheduled to discuss the Article IV Consultation in March 2026.
Global Economy Shakes Off Tariff Shock Amid Tech-Driven Boom
But risks are rising, including from the concentration of tech investment and the negative effects of trade disruptions, which may build over time
New Skills and AI Are Reshaping the Future of Work
Policy choices will determine whether workers and firms are adequately prepared for the AI revolution
Top 10 Blogs of 2025
Debt, Stablecoins, AI, and Global Economy’s New Era Drew Blog Readers
Top Five IMF Blog Charts of 2025
Chart of the Week visuals illustrate major developments during a year of uncertainty and resilience
How Stablecoins Can Improve Payments and Global Finance
New technology can foster innovation and financial inclusion, or cause fragmentation and turbulence in many countries
Better Economic Measurement Is About Wiser Use, Not Just More Data
Statistics are a means, not an end, that should serve the public by helping us see the world more clearly and make better decisions
CD Guidance Note
This CD Guidance Note provides a one-stop source of information and reference materials on Fund CD-related policies, practices, and procedures. In line with the Management Implementation Plan (MIP) on the Independent Evaluation Office’s (IEO) 2022 Evaluation of CD, this Guidance Note supersedes the 2019 IMF Policies and Practices on Capacity Development and serves to operationalize the recommendations of the 2024 CDSR. It also integrates relevant earlier guidance to staff related to CD delivery and management.
Data Provision to the Fund for Surveillance Purposes - Operational Guidance Note
This note provides guidance to country teams on the application of Fund policies and procedures related to data provision to the Fund for surveillance purposes. It provides staff with clear procedures and practical tools for the assessment of data adequacy and guidance on the Fund’s collaborative framework to identify and address data shortcomings, hampering surveillance and support members’ data production and provision capacity. The note operationalizes recent Board reviews of the policies on data provision to the Fund and data adequacy that strengthen the Fund’s ability to conduct robust and evenhanded surveillance by ensuring that data provision keeps pace with evolving analytical and policy needs.
The 2025 Review of The Short-Term Liquidity Line
The Short-term Liquidity Line (SLL), introduced in 2020, was designed as a revolving liquidity backstop for countries with very strong economic fundamentals and institutional policy frameworks. It aims to address short-term, moderate balance of payments needs arising from capital flow volatility, helping to prevent emerging liquidity pressures from escalating into broader macroeconomic or financial instability. However, uptake has been limited, with only one arrangement for Chile in 2022, which was canceled shortly thereafter in favor of a Flexible Credit Line (FCL).
The Chair’s Summing Up Independent Evaluation Office—IMF Advice on Fiscal Policy Executive Board Meeting December 4, 2025
The Executive Board discussed the Independent Evaluation Office’s review of IMF fiscal policy advice from 2008 to 2023. Directors welcomed the evaluation and noted the Fund’s progress in adapting its guidance to changing global conditions. The discussion highlighted the evolution from a narrow focus on debt sustainability toward a more integrated approach that balances fiscal sustainability, output stabilization, and long-term growth. Directors acknowledged improvements in analytical tools, including debt sustainability frameworks and fiscal risk assessments, while emphasizing the need for clearer articulation of fiscal stance and better integration of long-term spending priorities. The Board reaffirmed its commitment to transparency and consistency in providing candid, country-specific advice to help members navigate fiscal challenges.
Statement by the Managing Director on the Independent Evaluation Office Report on IMF Advice on Fiscal Policy Executive Board Meeting December 4, 2025
The Managing Director welcomes the Independent Evaluation Office’s assessment of IMF fiscal policy advice over the past 15 years. The evaluation highlights the Fund’s evolution from a narrow focus on debt sustainability to a more balanced framework that integrates output stabilization, fiscal sustainability, and long-term growth objectives.
Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)— Enhancing Resilience to Global Shocks: Economic Prospects and Policy Challenges for the GCC Countries
Despite the challenging external environment, the GCC economies have been resilient. Non-hydrocarbon activity has remained robust amid strong domestic demand supported by the reform momentum, limited spillovers from regional, as well as the modest direct impact of higher U.S. tariffs given the exemption of energy products and limited trade ties with the U.S. While external balances narrowed amid oil production cuts and robust imports, the external positions remain overall strong. The economic outlook remains favorable but risks are tilted to the downside amidst elevated global uncertainty. Economic activity will be supported by the unwinding of oil production cuts, the expansion of natural gas production, and strong reform and project implementation facilitated by ample policy buffers. External buffers would remain comfortable despite narrower current account balances driven by higher imports. The near-term risks to the outlook are tilted to the downside, as oil prices could decline and financial conditions tighten amid high uncertainty. Over the medium term, ongoing global structural shifts pose two-sided risks for the GCC economies.
From Ports to Prices: The Inflationary Effects of Global Supply Chain Disruptions
This paper examines the inflationary effects of shipping delays. We construct a novel measure of port-to-port shipping time using real-time AIS maritime data and link it with granular port-level trade and item-level price data. We document substantial heterogeneity in goods imports across ports and regions, variation in exposure to delays, and aggregate price responses to congestion shocks. Exploiting cross-product variations in exposure, we estimate both the average and dynamic effects of shipping delays on consumer prices, finding that a 100-hour delay raises inflation by roughly 0.5 percentage points at its five-month peak.
Algeria Macroeconomic Projection Model (AMPM)
The paper describes QMPM, the Quarterly Projection Model for the Bank of Algeria that underpins the Bank’s Forecasting and Policy Analysis System. The model is designed to capture the key features of the economy, including the importance of the hydrocarbon sector, sizable fiscal policy impacts, monetary-fiscal interactions, a monetary aggregate targeting policy framework, and a managed exchange rate regime. Model-based analytical exercises demonstrate that AMPM displays both theoretical consistency and a robust data fit, confirming its practicality for conducting real-time policy analysis, forecasts, and risk scenarios in support of the Bank of Algeria’s policy processes.
Banking on Nonbanks
We study how banking groups adjust corporate credit supply in response to tighter macroprudential policies. Using granular data on syndicated corporate loans, we show that banking groups reallocate lending from bank subsidiaries toward affiliated nonbank financial institutions (NBFIs) following regulatory tightening. Relative to bank subsidiaries within the same group, NBFI subsidiaries expand lending, and their credit supply also increases in absolute terms. We estimate that by ‘banking on’ their nonbanks, banking groups offset, on average, more than half of the contraction in bank lending induced by macroprudential tightening. Our findings highlight an important intra-group reallocation channel through which banking groups can partially offset regulatory constraints and result in greater bank–nonbank interconnectedness.
Distributional Impacts of Inflation Accounting for Behavioral Effects and Real Assets
This paper analyzes the redistributive effects of inflation across 18 European economies from 2021:Q3 to 2022:Q2, using unique micro-datasets for this country sample. We estimate inflation’s impact on household welfare through the consumption basket, income, and wealth channels. Our main contribution is incorporating real assets into the wealth channel and accounting for behavioral responses to inflation in both the income and wealth channels. These factors significantly alter inflation’s distributional effects compared to previous literature. The inflation shock is estimated to have caused an average welfare loss equivalent to 18.5 percent of annual household income across our sample, with households in the poorest income quintiles suffering the largest losses. Cross-country differences also widen when real assets are incorporated, with a few economies even showing welfare gains for some or all quintiles because house prices rose faster than inflation.
Understanding and Forecasting Inflation in Timor-Leste
This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of inflation in Timor-Leste—a post-conflict, low-income economy and small developing state that is fully dollarized. We find that Timorese inflation was high until about mid-2010 and was strongly influenced by swings in global food prices given its high share of food in the CPI basket and heavy reliance on food imports. But inflation has been relatively low and stable in the past decade relative to peers—a period that also broadly coincided with moderate global food prices. We develop an empirical model for Timorese inflation that distills the role of these underlying drivers, and which can be deployed for forecasting inflation.
Beyond Binary: A Policy-Intensity Measure of Capital Flow Management
This paper introduces the FinOpen index, a novel measure of capital flow management for 193 countries from 1996 to 2022. Using information from the IMF’s Annual Report on Exchange Arrangements and Exchange Restrictions (AREAER), the index is constructed by estimating the level of openness annually and updating it daily by incorporating changes in capital flow management measures (CFMs). Therefore, this index goes beyond the traditional indexes that rely on binary labels that only distinguish between full capital openness and any control. Within the range of [0, 1], the FinOpen index quantifies granular policy intensity and allows comparisons across countries (with higher values indicate greater capital openness). In addition, the dataset extends back to 1960 for 42 emerging and developing countries, and the methodology can be applied to construct long-term series for other countries.
Promoting Climate-Resilient and Green Development in Africa | Africa Perspectives
A conversation on how sub-Saharan Africa can promote climate-resilient and green development. African Department director Abebe Aemro Selassie hosts the premiere episode of Africa Perspectives.
Zambia: Towards a More Resilient and Inclusive Future
A discussion with University of Zambia students on how Zambia is making progress in its reform efforts to restore sustainability, invest in youth, combat corruption, and attract investment and the role of the IMF.
Strengthening Institutions for Sustainable Growth in the Post-COVID World
The conference provides an opportunity to discuss how South Asia can build on its development success in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and geopolitical tensions to achieve its potential.
The Resilience and Sustainability Trust - A Dialogue with Countries
A discussion on how the Resilience and Sustainability Trust fits wider climate objectives at the country and global level.
Regional Economic Outlook for the Middle East and North Africa, October 2022
Jihad Azour, Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department, presents the IMF’s latest economic outlook and growth projections for the MENA region
Living on the Edge: IMF Outlook for sub-Saharan Africa Nairobi Launch
A presentation and discussion of the October 2022 Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa.
Developing Economies Seminars
FCDO/IMF Project
