{
  "title": "2026 ROC Review FAQ",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/en/topics/2026-review-of-program-design-and-conditionality/roc-faq",
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  "summary": "Questions and answers on the 2026 Review of Program Design and Conditionality (ROC) examines how IMF-supported programs performed amid significant shocks and heightened global uncertainty.",
  "sections": [
    {
      "heading": "Overview and objective",
      "content": "- The 2026 Review of Program Design and Conditionality (ROC) examines how IMF-supported programs performed amid significant shocks and heightened global uncertainty.\n- The objective is to improve implementation and outcomes, not to lower standards.\n- Programs will continue to be anchored in the 2002 Guidelines on Conditionality and focused on resolving balance of payments problems and restoring medium-term external viability.\n- The Review identifies areas to enhance program design and conditionality so IMF-supported programs better support countries navigating a more shock-prone global economy."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Key findings on program performance",
      "content": "- Fund-supported programs responded with speed and agility to successive major shocks.\n  - During the pandemic, emergency financing and program augmentations helped 77 members sustain essential spending, protect vulnerable populations, and avoid sharp adjustments.\n  - When further shocks arose, programs were adjusted through augmentations, waivers, adjustors, and revisions.\n- Front-loaded but realistic and sustained fiscal adjustment has been associated with a higher likelihood of program success.\n- Social spending conditionality (SSC) expanded during the 2026 ROC period, reflecting greater attention to inclusive growth and protecting vulnerable groups.\n  - In PRGT-supported programs, those that protected or expanded social spending were marked by more sustained implementation and higher degrees of success.\n- According to the 2026 ROC stakeholder survey: 90 percent of respondents view the IMF as a trusted advisor and most consider its engagement as timely, well-focused, and effective in helping members confront shocks."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Areas for refinement identified by the Review",
      "content": "- Revenue projections could have better reflected implementation challenges and capacity constraints, particularly in PRGT-supported programs.\n- Some reforms were delayed or reversed, particularly in politically sensitive or institutionally complex areas.\n  - The Review notes that the benefits of deeper structural reforms often emerged over horizons beyond a single Fund arrangement, underscoring the importance of prioritization, sequencing, and sustained implementation.\n- Earlier program engagement can help preserve policy space needed for more balanced adjustment; delayed adjustment may ease near-term pressures but ultimately necessitate sharper corrections, amplifying the burden on the most vulnerable."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Policy recommendations and design principles",
      "content": "- Update and strengthen the IMF's existing approach to program design to be more coherent, realistic, adaptable, and effective, while remaining tailored to each country’s specific circumstances.\n- Key benefits for borrowing countries:\n  - More realistic and better-tailored programs: economic assumptions, policy choices, and reform sequencing that are more realistic and mindful of countries’ capacity, particularly for low-income, fragile and conflict-affected countries.\n  - Greater flexibility in responding to shocks: more systematic use of risk assessments, scenario analysis, and contingency planning to allow policies to adapt more quickly.\n  - More focused and impactful reforms: fewer but deeper reforms, better integrated IMF capacity development to strengthen institutions and deliver reforms.\n  - Stronger and more durable outcomes: emphasis on sustainable solutions through realistic financing strategies, better monitoring, and earlier course correction when circumstances change.\n- Fiscal policy guidance:\n  - Front-loading of fiscal adjustment is associated with higher chances of program success but is not recommended universally; the Review takes account of country circumstances.\n  - Where fiscal consolidation is essential, the Review encourages frontloading only to the extent feasible and alongside realistic, growth-friendly measures and adequate protection for the vulnerable.\n  - The pace and composition of adjustment should reflect country circumstances, including political economy considerations and distributional impacts.\n  - The Review calls for a more balanced mix of policies, relying on both revenue and expenditure measures and a stronger role for monetary policy conditionality as appropriate."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Implementation approach and sequencing",
      "content": "- The ROC is part of a set of major reviews the Fund is undertaking, including the Comprehensive Surveillance Review and Review of the Debt Sustainability Framework for Low Income Countries.\n- The ROC builds on and complements other reviews of the IMF lending framework, including reviews of the PRGT, charges and surcharges, and access limits.\n- Implementation will be phased, proportionate, and risk‑based, relying on refining existing guidance, enhancing tools, and leveraging ongoing workstreams.\n- Initial work will focus on:\n  - Updating the guidance note to map the operational implications of the recommendations.\n  - Developing new analytical tools and templates.\n- Subsequent steps will shift to country-level implementation:\n  - Country teams will apply new templates to new program requests while ongoing programs incorporate them as relevant.\n  - End-program summaries will be prepared as programs conclude, alongside other applicable guidance."
    }
  ],
  "bullets": [
    "The 2026 Review of Program Design and Conditionality (ROC) examines how IMF-supported programs performed amid significant shocks and heightened global uncertainty.",
    "The objective is to improve implementation and outcomes, not to lower standards.",
    "Programs will continue to be anchored in the 2002 Guidelines on Conditionality and focused on resolving balance of payments problems and restoring medium-term external viability.",
    "The Review identifies areas to enhance program design and conditionality so IMF-supported programs better support countries navigating a more shock-prone global economy.",
    "Fund-supported programs responded with speed and agility to successive major shocks.",
    "Front-loaded but realistic and sustained fiscal adjustment has been associated with a higher likelihood of program success.",
    "Social spending conditionality (SSC) expanded during the 2026 ROC period, reflecting greater attention to inclusive growth and protecting vulnerable groups.",
    "According to the 2026 ROC stakeholder survey: 90 percent of respondents view the IMF as a trusted advisor and most consider its engagement as timely, well-focused, and effective in helping members confront shocks.",
    "Revenue projections could have better reflected implementation challenges and capacity constraints, particularly in PRGT-supported programs.",
    "Some reforms were delayed or reversed, particularly in politically sensitive or institutionally complex areas.",
    "Earlier program engagement can help preserve policy space needed for more balanced adjustment; delayed adjustment may ease near-term pressures but ultimately necessitate sharper corrections, amplifying the burden on the most vulnerable.",
    "Update and strengthen the IMF's existing approach to program design to be more coherent, realistic, adaptable, and effective, while remaining tailored to each country’s specific circumstances.",
    "Key benefits for borrowing countries:",
    "Fiscal policy guidance:",
    "The ROC is part of a set of major reviews the Fund is undertaking, including the Comprehensive Surveillance Review and Review of the Debt Sustainability Framework for Low Income Countries.",
    "The ROC builds on and complements other reviews of the IMF lending framework, including reviews of the PRGT, charges and surcharges, and access limits.",
    "Implementation will be phased, proportionate, and risk‑based, relying on refining existing guidance, enhancing tools, and leveraging ongoing workstreams.",
    "Initial work will focus on:",
    "Subsequent steps will shift to country-level implementation:"
  ],
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  "generatedAtUtc": "2026-10-01T20:25:12.584Z"
}