IMF support focuses on participatory approach, ‘inclusive growth’

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Eduardo Aninat assumed the office of IMF Deputy Managing Director on December 14, 1999. Before coming to the IMF, Aninat, a native of Chile, had served as Finance Minister of Chile from 1994 and chaired the Board of Governors of the IMF and the World Bank in 1995–96. Previously, he worked in the private sector and as a consultant for the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. Aninat recently met with editors of the IMF Survey to talk about his experience with the IMF and his hopes and plans for the future.

Aninat: I see a very strong mandate for the IMF to focus more deeply on surveillance—macroeconomic and financial monitoring—including in the banking, insurance, and services areas.

IMF SURVEY: In what ways has your diverse experience in the private and public sectors been useful in the IMF?

ANINAT: The work of the Bretton Woods institutions is centered on development, stability, and growth issues. So my past experience—at the public sector level, as well as in the private sec-Page 194tor and academia—has probably contributed to the development of abilities that help me cope with many of the more operational international development issues that we face today. From a practical point of view, my background helps me to contribute a certain way of decision making and vision within the collective of our management team. But, probably, my work during my six years as finance minister in Chile is most closely related to my work now.

IMF SURVEY: Since you have taken office, how has your perspective of the IMF as an institution changed?

ANINAT: Having been an “outsider” to the IMF—Chile repaid the IMF in full in 1994, during my first year as finance minister, and we did not have an active program during the rest of my term—I confess I viewed the IMF as more monolithic in its way of thinking than I have found it to be in practice. Far more full-fledged, very open discussion goes on in selected committees or in broad groups before final decisions are made by the Executive Board and management. So one way my perception has changed is in recognizing the broader, more analytical, and open way of proceeding here.

IMF SURVEY: How successful has the IMF been in adapting to evolving trends, such as globalization, and to recent financial crises? And do you see a major change in focus in the future for the IMF?

ANINAT: The IMF’s most recent and hardest experience was certainly the Asian crisis, which spread to Russia and Brazil. The IMF learned a lot as an institution from this experience. One lesson was the importance of monitoring developments more closely in the financial arena. Another is that we need to work with governments and other agents and recognize when and how these problems arise. I see a very strong mandate for the IMF to focus more deeply on surveillance—macroeconomic and financial monitoring— including in the banking, insurance, and services areas.

The IMF has adapted and evolved through time in a second way: with streamlining and changes in its facilities and with its involvement (along with the World Bank) in the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative and the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF). Our core task is and will remain centered on the...