The COVID-19 pandemic is taking a human toll and has unleashed a series of shocks on the Fund's entire membership, creating severe disruption in the global economic and financial system. As a result, many emerging market and developing country (EMDC) members face urgent and unprecedented...

This paper proposes that the Executive Board approve the disbursement of a second 6-month tranche of CCRT debt service relief to 28 of the 29 members, covering the period October 14, 2020 through April 13, 2021, given staff's assessment that sufficient financial resources are available.2 In this...

This paper proposes a package of policy reforms and a funding strategy to ensure that the Fund has the capacity to respond flexibly to LICs' needs during the pandemic and recovery. The key policy reforms proposed include: -- raising the normal annual/cumulative limits on access to PRGT resources...

This paper describes how economic behavior in the market for health care in the United States is influenced by a range of impediments to the functioning of the price mechanism which impart an upward bias to health care costs and imply efficiency losses. The paper also considers how to reform the...

This paper, prepared by a working group of IMF staff, provides a preliminary assessment of the risks and potential impact to the global economy and financial system from a possible avian flu pandemic, discusses the IMF’s role in helping member countries prepare their economic and financial...

Poverty risk is most marked for children, displaced persons and returnees, unemployed, and people with low education. Basic goals of the macroeconomic framework of the mid-term development strategy of Bosnia and Herzegovina are to reduce the overall public expenditures, lower the public debt,...

This Selected Issues paper on the Slovak Republic reviews efficiency and reform of the health sector. The immediate challenge for the health care system in the Slovak Republic is to improve health sector outcomes while containing public health spending. The Slovak health care system is...