The Role of the IFIsRole of IFIs and National Governments

Richard Allen ()

Chapter 2 in Reforming Public Finances, 2026, pp 21-35 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract This chapter focuses on the role of the IMF, the World Bank, and national governments. It reports on the mixed reviews provided by the independent evaluation offices of the IMF and the World Bank. Academic work largely supports this skeptical evaluation. The key constraints on reforms are political rather than technical, but these factors are largely ignored by the IMF and the World Bank. The incentives to change the current system are quite weak, since the IMF/World Bank country teams and the national authorities tend to support existing arrangements. This chapter concludes that the current provision of technical support is seriously suboptimal as is the extent of coordination and cooperation between the IMF and the World Bank. It lists six key areas where current practices of the IMF and the World Bank are deficient. The role of national governments is also suboptimal; they do not design and manage public finance reforms very efficiently.

Keywords: Key reform areas; public finance; PFM; budgeting; institutions; political economy; technical assistance; nontechnical assistance; fiscal policy; fiscal risks; fiscal transparency; World Bank; IMF; AI tools; reform sequencing; governance; corruption; international financial institutions (IFIs); developing countries; advanced countries; legal frameworks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-032-12388-6_2

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-032-12388-6_2

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