Religious Groups Briefed on IMF Policy Advice, Reform Programs

• Author: Gita Bhatt
• Position: IMF External Relations Department
• Pages: 265-266

Page 265

Successful implementation of economic reform requires a national consensus that sustains both the process and the goals of reform. The IMF recognizes the key role that broad-based support plays in the reform process and increasingly is reaching out to wider segments of society to explain the nature of economic problems and the policies needed to secure a durable prosperity.

IMF policy advice plays an important, and constructive, role in helping governments design and implement appropriate reforms. Some critics argue, however, that IMF policy advice is not subject to wider public debate or understanding and that concerns of the numerous groups that make up civil society can go unheard. But the IMF and national authorities have come increasingly to appreciate that economic policy formulation that rests on a broad consensus of social and economic stakeholders can be a critical element in the success of a reform effort. Such a consensus would encompass, for example, the support of trade unions and social and religious groups-often subsumed under the rubric of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).

The IMF recognizes the importance of broad-based support for the reform process.

At the request of the Religious Working Group on the IMF and the World Bank-and as a follow-up to a suggestion made by the IMF's senior management in an earlier meeting on the evolution of IMF conditionality-the IMF held a half-day seminar in late July to explain to a group of religious leaders the principles of structural adjustment and the elements that go into the design of a reform program. The Religious Working Group- formed in 1994-is a Washington-based coalition of more than 40 Protestant denominations, Catholic religious orders and agencies, national faith-based organiza-Page 266tions, and social policy groups active on issues of global economic justice. Many members are opinion leaders, with grassroots contacts in developing countries.

IMF staff sought to explain the basic formulation of adjustment programs and policy options and how reforms are designed, using Zimbabwe's experience during 1991-95. Zimbabwe offered a useful example because...