Following the severe financial crises of the 1990s, identifying and assessing financial sector vulnerabilities has become a key priority of the international community. The costly disruptions in global markets underscored the need to establish a set of monitorable variables for evaluating...

This paper evaluates progress made under ESAF-supported programs in attaining external viability, restoring economic growth, and implementing structural reforms. Performance is evaluated for 19 countries that entered ESAF arrangements by mid-1992, against the background of their initial...

A strengthened fiscal position is at the core of most economic adjustment programs supported by IMF lending, especially for the poorer countries that draw on the IMF's structural adjustment facilities. This paper reviews developments in 23 countries and evaluates their experience with fiscal and...

This paper examines the various roles of IMF financing in crisis prevention. Emerging market economies that experienced financial crises in the past have been subject to enormous economic and social costs, highlighting the importance of crisis prevention. While the main defense against a crisis...

As part of its mandate, the IMF seeks to create the conditions necessary for sustained high-quality growth, which encompasses a broad range of elements. These include sound macroeconomic policies, growth-enhancing structural reforms, good governance, and such social policies as cost-effective...

This paper was originally prepared for a seminar of the Executive Board of the Fund. In the seminar, Executive Directors expressed a broad range of views with regard to both the adequacy of the Fund's approach to financial programming and the validity of the analysis presented in this paper

This paper is a preliminary review of the design of and early experience with IMF-supported programs in Indonesia, Korea, and Thailand during 1997-98. The review takes into account developments as of October 1998, and was the basis for a discussion of the programs by the IMF's Executive Board in...

In late 1999 the IMF established the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) to integrate the objectives of poverty reduction and growth more fully into its operations for the poorest countries, and to base these operations on national poverty reduction strategies prepared by the country...

This paper offers Algeria's recent experience with macroeconomic stabilization and systemic transformation from a centrally planned to a market economy. The analyses focuses on the period since 1994 when Algeria embarked on a comprehensive reform program that has benefitted from IMF support,...