With the concessional lending operations of the World Bank and IMF having expanded dramatically in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis, Liam Clegg provides a timely analysis of the institutional dynamics shaping this aspect of the institutions' operations. Drawn from staffs' own understandings of their operational environments, the volume explores the dynamics of power surrounding these activities. As shareholder states continue to push the institutions to demonstrate their effective contribution to global poverty reduction, they alter the opportunities available for a range of stakeholders to shape operational practice in these key arenas of global economic governance. By demonstrating that current developments are serving to tilt the balance in the 'asymmetric accommodation' between shareholders and stakeholders towards the former, the author highlights some of the most controversial areas of World Bank and IMF operations.

The papers included in this book cover different aspects of the governance of the Bretton Woods institutions. They explore different options for reform and show that enhancing the participation of developing and emerging market countries in resolving the major monetary and financial problems confronting the world economy, would improve global economic performance and contribute to the elimination of world poverty.

In March 2006, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the President of the World Bank commissioned the External Review Committee on IMF-World Bank Collaboration to look at the status of institutional collaboration and provide suggestions for improvement. The Committee’s report, released in February 2007, called for the strengthening of the culture of collaboration in the two institutions, and made a number of specific proposals in that direction. The Joint Management Action Plan (JMAP) was prepared against this background, and the actions agreed between Bank and Fund managements in the JMAP are scheduled to be presented in informal Board meetings in early October. The JMAP will be launched immediately after the Annual Meetings. The goal is for most new systems to be operational in time for the preparation of FY09 budgets.

Liam Clegg provides an innovative reading of where power lies in the institutions' concessional lending operations, drawing its focus on shareholders and stakeholders from staffs' own understandings of their operational environments.

Bringing together some of the foremost authorities in their fields, this book is the result of work carried out on behalf of the G24, the world's only research effort devoting to furthering the interests of developing countries and bringing their needs to global attention. The book gives a voice to the developing nations of the world through its powerful essays and its fresh perspective.

This pamphlet is adapted from Chapter 1 of Silent Revolution: The International Monetary Fund, 1979-89, by the same author. That book is full of history of the evolution of the Fund during 11 years in which the institution truly came of age as a participant in the international financial system.