On March 22, 2017, the Executive Board adopted the Guidelines for Investing PRG, PRG-HIPC, and CCR Trust Assets (the “Guidelines”) to establish the investment objectives and policies to guide the investment of assets of the PRG, PRG-HIPC, and CCR Trusts (the“Trusts”) which are available for investment under the Trusts’ instruments. These Guidelines are included in this document.

Guidelines for Investing PRG, PRG-HIPC, and CCR Trust Assets (the “Guidelines”), which were adopted on March 22, 2017, were further amended on January 12, 2022, by the Executive Board of the IMF. The Guidelines establish the investment objectives and policies to guide the investment of assets of the PRG, PRG-HIPC, and CCR Trusts (the “Trusts”) which are available for investment under the Trusts’ instruments.

In July 2017, the Executive Board adopted a decision (hereinafter the ”Decision”) regarding the investment of resources provided to the Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (“PRG Trust”) and other trusts on a temporary basis with the purpose of generating income for the operations of these trusts (“temporary resources”). This paper proposes that the Decision be amended to clarify that those temporary resources invested under the third option for PRG Trust contributors will be centralized in the Deposit and Investment Account (DIA).

On July 28, 2017, the Executive Board approved the following decision on the Investment of Temporary Resources to Generate Income to Contribute to PRG, PRG-HIPC, and CCR Trusts. This decision references the Guidelines for Investing PRG, PRG-HIPC, and CCR Trust Assets, which were adopted by the Executive Board on March 22, 2017. These Guidelines are also available to the public.

This paper reviews Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT) facilities and financing. It proposes a comprehensive package of lending policy reforms and financing measures that aims to bolster the Fund’s capacity to support Low-Income Countries (LICs) in addressing their balance of payment needs, while restoring the self-sustainability of the Trust. The Review proposes a long-term self-sustained annual PRGT lending envelope of SDR 2.7 billion, more than double the PRGT envelope before the Covid-19 pandemic, consistent with the expected demand for Fund’s concessional financial support in the years ahead. The paper also proposes to introduce a new interest rate mechanism to better reflect the heterogeneity among LICs and focus further concessional resources to the poorest countries. These countries (currently 31 LICs) will continue to benefit from an interest-free lending under the PRGT, while other LICs will be charged a modest, and still concessional, interest rate. Additionally, the paper proposes to keep PRGT access limits at their current levels and to implement several reforms, including: reverting the PRGT access norm to the level prevailing before December 2023, streamlining and strengthening the PRGT safeguards, adjusting the PRGT eligibility and graduation framework and updating the list of PRGT-eligible countries, extending the temporarily higher cumulative access limits under the RCF until the end of December 2025, and implementing a targeted adjustment to the Policy Safeguards for High Combined Credit Exposure. On financing measures, the paper proposes to address the remaining gap in PRGT subsidy resources after accounting for the lending policy changes through (1) a further five-year suspension of PRGT administrative expenses reimbursement to the GRA and (2) a framework to deploy IMF internal resources to facilitate the generation of PRGT subsidy resources.

This paper provides an update of the adequacy of the resources of the Fund’s Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT) and the debt relief trusts. Demand for PRGT loans continued to exceed earlier projections. Total PRGT credit outstanding reached SDR 18.3 billion at end-2023, or three times the pre-pandemic average. PRGT fundraising targets under the 2021 two-stage funding strategy to support LICs during the pandemic and beyond were met. Work is underway to implement the pledges. Ensuring PRGT long-term sustainability is a priority, and balancing a level of PRGT lending that meets the demand from eligible countries while ensuring the long-term sustainability of the Trust will be taken up in the ongoing PRGT Review. The Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust (CCRT) remains severely underfunded, after providing debt relief to the IMF’s poorest and most vulnerable members during 2020–22. The Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative is nearly complete. Somalia reached its Completion Point under the HIPC Initiative in December 2023, while Sudan’s prospects for reaching its HIPC Completion Point remain uncertain owing to domestic developments.

The audited financial statements that follow form Appendix VI of the International Monetary Fund’s Annual Report 2022 and can be found, together with Appendixes I through V and other materials, on the Annual Report 2022 web page (www.imf.org/AR2022). They have been reproduced separately here as a convenience for readers. Quarterly updates of the IMF’s Finances are available at www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/quart/index.htm.