IMF's Articles of Agreement continue to shape organizational structure

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The IMF consists of a Board of Governors, an Executive Board, a Managing Director, a First Deputy Managing Director, two other Deputy Managing Directors, and a staff of international civil servants. The IMF staff is organized mainly into departments with regional, functional, information and liaison, and support functions. The heads of these departments report to the Managing Director.

The Board of Governors of the IMF consists of one governor and one alternate for each member country. The governor, appointed by the member country, is usually the minister of finance or the central bank governor. The Board of Governors has delegated to the Executive Board all except certain reserved powers.

It normally meets once a year. The Executive Board is responsible for conducting the day-to-day business of the IMF. It is composed of 24 directors, who are appointed or elected by member countries or groups of countries. The Managing Director serves as its chairman.Meeting several times a week, the Executive Board deals with a wide variety of policy, operational, and administrative matters, including surveillance of members' macroeconomic policies, provision of IMF financial assistance to member countries, and discussion of systemic issues in the global economy.

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The IMF's Managing Director is the head of the organization's staff. Under the Board's direction, the Managing Director is responsible for conducting the ordinary business of the IMF. The Managing Director serves a five-year term and may be reappointed to successive terms.

In July 2000, the IMF and the World Bank set up separate working groups to review the process for selecting the heads of their respective institutions in an effort to make the process more open and transparent. On April 26, 2001, the IMF's Executive Board considered the two working groups' draft joint report, which they endorsed as guidance for...