Credible Start, Untested Impact

• Author: Carol Welch
• Position: Director of International Programs at Friends of the Earth
• Pages: 50-51

Page 50

The Establishment of the IEO was an extremely important step in efforts to increase the IMF's transparency and accountability. The previous practice of internal review-supplemented by the occasional external review-was widely seen by the civil society community as a back-patting exercise that failed to address crucial issues. But an independent review body that conducts flawed assessments, or is ignored by the institution it is supposed to influence, would also be of little use. A look at how the IEO, after its first full year of conducting evaluations, has met its objectives is another important undertaking.

Friends of the Earth had long advocated the establishment of an office that would conduct independent evaluations of the IMF. When an ad hoc external review process was launched in 1997, we monitored its implementation, commented on the reviews, and offered input into the review process and its implementation, which we viewed as flawed for falling short of its promised two to three reviews a year. We continued to argue for a permanent body.

We therefore welcomed the announcement, at the 2000 IMF-World Bank spring meeting, of the establishment of the Independent Evaluation Office. In between that announcement and the decisions to be made at the Annual Meetings that fall, we made recommendations to IMF staff and Executive Directors about the office's structure. Our main concerns were that the office be independent and that it report to the Board of Directors. It was also a priority, in our view, that the IEO have as few constraints as possible on its authority to select review topics.

We were particularly concerned about the Chairman's concluding remarks after an August 3, 2000, board discussion that "policies and procedures under active discussion in the Fund and current Fund programs would not be appropriate areas for EVO [its original acronym] evaluation." We perceived this statement as an effort to limit the new office's mandate. In a letter to Managing Director Horst Köhler, several international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) wrote that the Chairman's remarks represented a departure from the background papers on the evaluation office, which called for no "a priori" restrictions on its mandate. Civil society groups also wanted to participate in the development of the new office's work program and supported the hiring of an external staff with field...