Fund policy changes

Source Credit

(a) Policy changes within IMF
The Secretary of the Treasury shall instruct the United States Executive Director of the Fund to promote regularly and vigorously in program discussions and quota increase negotiations the following proposals:
(1) Poverty alleviation, reduction of barriers to economic and social progress, and progress toward environmentally sound policies and programs
(A)(i) Considerations of poverty alleviation and the reduction of barriers to economic and social progress should be incorporated into all Fund programs and all consultations under article IV of the Articles of Agreement of the Fund.
(ii) Preparation of Policy Framework Papers should be extended to all nations which have Fund programs and active Bank or International Development Association lending programs, and existence of a Policy Framework Paper should be a precondition for new lending to such nations by the Fund.
(iii) All Policy Framework Papers should articulate the principal poverty, economic, and social measures that the borrowing nation needs to address, and this portion of the Policy Framework Paper (or a summary thereof that includes specific measures and timing) should be made available when the Policy Framework Paper is submitted to the Executive Directors of the Bank and of the Fund for consideration.
(iv) In considering whether to allocate resources of the Fund to a borrower, the Fund should take into consideration the nature of the program and commitment of the borrower to address the issues referred to in clause (iii).
(v) The Fund should establish procedures to enable the Fund to cooperate with the Bank in evaluating the effectiveness of the measures referred to in clause (iii), at the levels of policy, project design, monitoring, and reporting, in the international financial institutions and in the borrowing nations.
(B)(i) The Fund should be encouraged to make further progress toward environmentally sound policies and programs.
(ii) The Fund should incorporate environmental considerations into all Fund programs, including consultations under article IV of the Articles of Agreement of the Fund.
(iii) The Fund should be encouraged to support the efforts of nations to implement systems of natural resource accounting in their national income accounts.
(iv) The Fund should be encouraged to assist and cooperate fully with the statistical research being undertaken by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and by the United Nations in order to facilitate development and adoption of a generally applicable system for taking account of the depletion or degradation of natural resources in national income accounts.
(v) The Fund should be encouraged to consider and implement, as appropriate, revisions in its national income reporting systems consistent with such new systems as are of general applicability.
(2) Policy audits
(A) The Fund should conduct periodic audits to review systematically the policy prescriptions recommended and required by the Fund in the areas of poverty and the environment.
(B) The purposes of such audits would be—
(i) to determine whether the Fund's objectives were met; and
(ii) to evaluate the social and environmental impacts of the implementation of the policy prescriptions.
(C) Such audits would have access to all ongoing programs and activities of the Fund and the ability to review the effects of Fund-supported programs, on a country-by-country basis, with respect to poverty, economic development, and environment.
(D) Such audits should be made public as appropriate with due respect to confidentiality.
(3) Ensuring policy options that increase the productive participation of the poor
The Fund should establish procedures that ensure the focus of future economic reform programs approved by the Fund on policy options that increase the productive participation of the poor in the economy.
(4) Public access to information
(A) The Fund should establish procedures for public access to information.
(B) Such procedures shall seek to ensure access of the public to information while paying due regard to appropriate confidentiality.
(C) Policy Framework Papers and the supporting documents prepared by the Fund's mission to a country are examples of documents that should be made public at an appropriate time and in appropriate ways.
(b) Progress report
Each annual report of the National Advisory Council on International Monetary and Financial Policies shall describe the following:
(1) The actions that the United States Executive Director and other officials have taken to convince the Fund to adopt the proposals set forth in subsection (a) through formal initiatives before the Board and management of the Fund, through bilateral discussions with other member nations, and through any further quota increase negotiations.
(2) The status of the progress being made by the Fund in implementing the proposals set forth in subsection (a).
(c) Study
The Secretary of the Treasury shall instruct the United States Executive Director to the Fund to urge the Fund—
(1) to explore ways to increase the involvement and participation of important ministries, national development experts, environmental experts, free-market experts, and other legitimate experts and representatives from the loan-recipient country in the development of Fund programs; and
(2) to report on the status of Fund efforts in this regard.

History

(July 31, 1945, ch. 339, §59, as added Pub. L. 102–511, title X, §1002, Oct. 24, 1992, 106 Stat. 3357.)