The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is increasingly involved in offering policy advice on public pension issues to member countries. Public pension spending is important from both fiscal and welfare perspectives. Pension policy and its reforms can have significant fiscal and distribution implications, can influence labor supply and labor demand decisions, and may impact consumption and savings behavior. This technical note provides guidance on assessing public pension systems’ macrocriticality, i.e., sustainability, adequacy, and efficiency; it also discusses the issues and policy trade-offs to be considered when designing responses aiming to address these dimensions of the pension system. The paper emphasizes the importance of taking a long-term, comprehensive perspective when evaluating public pension spending and providing policy advice. Where feasible, reforms should be gradual and transparent to allow individuals ample time to adjust their work and savings decisions and to facilitate consumption smoothing over their lifecycle to avoid poverty in old age. It is also important to ensure that pension systems’ design and reforms do not lead to undesirable impacts in other policy areas including general tax compliance, health insurance coverage, labor force participation among older workers, or labor market informality. The paper emphasizes the importance country-specific social and economic objectives and constraints, as well as political economy realities – factors that can determine whether a pension reform is a success or failure.

Interest in social spending issues has intensified over the last decade. This reflects concerns about rising inequality and the need to support vulnerable groups, especially in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. In line with this, the Fund has also increased its engagement on social spending issues. This paper outlines a strategy to guide IMF engagement on social spending issues going forward.

IMF country teams have become increasingly engaged on health spending issues in surveillance and program work, and more so since the COVID-19 pandemic. The primary objectives of health spending are to improve health outcomes and provide protection to households against high financial costs of health care. The Fund’s engagement on health spending issues is guided by an assessment of its macro-criticality, with the scope and purpose of engagement varying across countries and depending on whether it occurs in surveillance or program contexts. This technical note discusses how to assess the macro-criticality of health spending and reviews appropriate policy responses. The design and implementation of macro-critical health reforms often require specific sectoral knowledge and experience. Thus, this note emphasizes the importance of collaborating with development partners on health policy issues.

National pension systems face a range of tough social and economic demands and pressures. These are complex to navigate, especially in a twenty-first century world that has ushered in global uncertainty and pressing challenges - even threatening the planet’s very sustainability – with implications for pensions that policymakers, financial services providers and individuals themselves must address. This book probes, and unpacks, what pension systems aim to achieve, the uncertainties they face and how they are attempting to resolve them. Analysing pension provision from the systemic, political-economy and individual perspectives, it sets out and contextualises commonalities and differences in pension systems across the globe, looking at current developments in both public and private pension provision, structures and regulation. Moreover, the reader is encouraged to question how national pension systems can best serve their populations and ensure the ‘sustainability’ of later-life incomes in the light of today’s global pension challenges. Global Pension Challenges: Pensions, Saving and Retirement in the Twenty‐First Century is an essential read for business, finance and social-policy academics and students, those working in the pensions industry and in the areas of welfare reform and advocacy, as well as the general public wishing to know more about the retirement issues we will all face in the coming years.

This note aims to provide guidance on the key principles and considerations underlying the design of Fund-supported programs. The note expands on the previous operational guidance notes on conditionality published over 2003-2014, incorporating lessons from the 2018-19 Review of Conditionality, and other recent key policy developments including the recommendation of the Management’s Implementation Plan in response to Independent Evaluation Office (IEO)’s report on growth and adjustment in IMF-supported programs. The note in particular highlights operational advice to (i) improve the realism of macroeconomic forecast in programs and fostering a more systematic analysis of contingency plans and risks; (ii) improve the focus, depth, implementation, and tailoring of structural conditions (SCs), with due consideration of growth effects; and (iii) help strengthen the ownership of country authorities. Designed as a comprehensive reference and primer on program design and conditionality in an accessible and transparent manner, the note refers in summary to a broad range of economic and policy considerations over the lifecycle of Fund-supported programs. As with all guidance notes, the relevant IMF Executive Board Decisions remain the primary legal authority on matters covered in this note.

The International Monetary Fund’s engagement on social safety net (SSN) issues is likely to expand as member countries respond to growing challenges in the economic and fiscal landscape. SSNs play a crucial role in protecting households from poverty, promoting inclusive growth, and maintaining social stability. This technical note discusses (1) the different channels through which SSN spending may become macro-critical, (2) how to assess the importance of these channels, and (3) the types of policy responses that are appropriate and the trade-offs involved in choosing among them. To facilitate a more comprehensive assessment of SSN spending, the paper also examines the complementary role of labor market programs (for example, unemployment benefits and active labor market programs). The paper emphasizes the importance of early engagement and coordination with development partners with expertise on social safety nets and with different stakeholders when formulating policy advice.

A pension system is at the heart of social protection. By ensuring income security for older persons and other vulnerable groups, it prevents poverty, reduces inequality, and facilitates consumption smoothing. A pension system also affects the working population’s labor market choices and has important fiscal implications. Iraq’s current pension system is highly fragmented, inequitable, and inefficient. First, it fails to provide adequate income protection to most of Iraqi’s old age population and other vulnerable groups, such as survivors and persons with disability. Second, the public sector pension is already putting substantial pressure on the budget and is potentially unsustainable given the projected acceleration of the total pension bill due to recent policy changes. Third, it sets an uneven playing field between the public and private sectors, contributing to the continued expansion of an already outsized civil service and holding back much-needed economic diversification and private sector growth. Thus, a comprehensive pension reform is urgently needed. Based on collaboration between the IMF, ILO and the World Bank this policy note aims to: 1) Provide an assessment of the existing public and private pension system across the four dimensions: fiscal sustainability; labor market implications; coverage; and adequacy of benefits. 2) Develop and propose options to adjust the pension system with a view to making it fiscally sustainable, more inclusive and adequate, and conducive to private sector development and labor market formalization. 3) Provide a basis to engage key stakeholders—including workers, employers organizations and the civil society—on strategies to achieve a more inclusive system, importantly by including workers in the informal economy, female workers, workers with disabilities, and other disadvantaged groups.