Financing for Development: IMF’s Role in the Post-2015 Agenda

IMF to expand access to all of its concessional facilities by 50 percent

Zero interest rate for low-income countries struggling with natural disasters, conflict

Scaled-up support for raising domestic revenue potential and greater attention to equity and inclusion

The measures were outlined in a speech by IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde at the Brookings Institution on July 8, and will be discussed further next week in Addis Ababa during the Third International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD).

Many of the key issues under discussion at the conference are already at the core of the IMF’s mandate. These include national policy issues such as domestic revenue mobilization, expenditure efficiency and effectiveness, attracting and managing capital flows, prudent expansion of public investment and international policy issues such as maintaining global financial stability and international tax cooperation.

The IMF Executive Board on July 1 also approved the following changes to further bolster the IMF’s commitment to low-income countries:

• Expanding access to all of its concessional facilities by 50 percent, which means making more money available for eligible low-income countries;

• Targeting that concessional financing further towards the poorest and most vulnerable countries; and

• Setting the interest rate at zero for all loans extended under the Rapid Credit Facility, which is targeted at countries hit by natural disasters and fragile/post-conflict states.

“We have the opportunity to make a positive difference in the lives of billions of people in the world, especially the poorest,” said IMF Deputy Managing Director Min Zhu, who is overseeing the Fund’s work on Financing for Development. “To achieve this, the IMF is delivering enhanced technical assistance, surveillance and lending.”

The 2015 Global Development Agenda

The Financing for Development Conference is one of three major international events—including the Sustainable Development Goals summit in New York in September, and the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Paris in December—that collectively make 2015 a pivotal year for global development.

The FfD Conference is intended to produce a shared understanding on how the financing needed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will be mobilized. The SDGs, set to be formally adopted at the summit in September, replace the Millennium Development Goals which expire this year. The SDGs now...