This paper discusses that the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) has also launched three new evaluations—which will analyze the IMF’s role on fragile states, its financial surveillance activities, and its advice on unconventional monetary policies—and two evaluation updates—which will look into the IMF’s exchange rate policy advice and structural conditionality. The evaluation found that, for the most part, the IMF’s euro area surveillance identified the right issues during the pre-crisis period but did not foresee the magnitude of the risks that would later become paramount. The IMF’s surveillance of the financial regulatory architecture was generally of high quality, but staff, along with most other experts, missed the buildup of banking system risks in some countries. The report found several issues with the way decision making was managed by the IMF. In May 2010, the IMF Executive Board approved a decision to provide exceptional access financing to Greece without seeking preemptive debt restructuring, even though its sovereign debt was not deemed sustainable with a high probability.

This Open Access book deals with the pressing question of how to achieve transformational change that reconciles development with environmental sustainability. It particularly focuses on the role of evaluation in finding sustainable solutions. Environment and development are closely interlinked, as are human health and ecosystem health. The pandemic that began in 2020 demonstrated in no uncertain terms how destruction of habitats has allowed hitherto unknown pathogens spill over to humans wreaking havoc on people’s lives and livelihoods. We are already seeing the impacts of global climate change in terms of heatwaves, forest fires and increased storms. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) explicitly recognize the equal importance of the social, economic and environmental dimensions of development. In these turbulent times, when humankind faces multiple complex challenges it is essential to know that our responses are effective and that they make a positive difference. Evaluation can provide invaluable lessons to how we design policies, strategies and programs and how we allocate limited resources between competing priorities. This book brings together key thinkers and practitioners from the public and private sectors, from major multilateral organizations and from bilateral donor agencies, to present the latest knowledge and experience on how to evaluate interventions in the nexus of environment and development. The book does not promote any particular approach or methodology, but rather emphasizes the need for mixed methods to address the question at hand in the best and most suitable manner. It covers cases from a variety of fields, from climate change mitigation and adaptation, energy efficiency and renewable energy, natural resources management, biodiversity conservation and more. This book is not a conference proceedings although it has its roots in the Third International Conference on Evaluating Environment and Development organized by the GEF Independent Evaluation Office in October 2019. The conference brought together a larger number of established and upcoming evaluators, researchers and evaluation users from the Global North and South, representing a wide variety of organizations, to discuss the frontiers of environment and development evaluation. Following the conference, the editors identified and contacted the participants who made key contributions at the conference and asked them to develop their ideas and papers into book chapters according to a coherent plan.

This paper analyzes that the IMF has moved beyond its traditional fiscal-centric approach to recognize that social protection can also be macro-critical for broader reasons including social and political stability concerns. Evaluating the IMF’s involvement in social protection is complicated by the fact that there is no standard definition of social protection or of broader/overlapping terms such as social spending and social safeguards in (or outside) the IMF. In this evaluation, social protection is understood to include policies that provide benefits to vulnerable individuals or households. This evaluation found widespread IMF involvement in social protection across countries although the extent of engagement varied. In some cases, engagement was relatively deep, spanning different activities (bilateral surveillance, technical assistance, and/or programs) and involving detailed analysis of distributional impacts, discussion of policy options, active advocacy of social protection, and integration of social protection measures in program design and/or conditionality. This cross-country variation to some degree reflected an appropriate response to country-specific factors, in particular an assessment of whether social protection policy was macrocritical, and the availability of expertise from development partners or in the country itself.

A recovery is underway, but the economic fallout from the global pandemic could be with us for years to come. With the crisis exacerbating prepandemic vulnerabilities, country prospects are diverging. Nearly half of emerging market and developing economies and some middle-income countries are now at risk of falling further behind, undoing much of the progress made toward achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

The past year was one of growing economic anxiety tied to skepticism about both economic integration and an international approach to economic policy making. To help make globalization work for all, the IMF focused on providing policy advice in many macro-critical areas.

This book provides novel and in-depth perspectives on evaluating environment and sustainability issues in developing countries. Evaluating Environment in International Development focuses on the approaches and experiences of leading international organizations, not-for-profits, and multilateral and bilateral aid agencies to illustrate how systematic evaluation is an essential tool for providing evidence for decision-makers. Moving beyond projects and programmes, it explores normative work on the environment as well as environmental consequences of economic and social development efforts. This new edition reflects on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Sustainable Development Goals and considers how they have influenced efforts in a wide range of countries and what the implications are for evaluation. It also explores ways in which Big Data and geospatial approaches might be utilized. Significantly updated throughout to reflect recent developments in climate change research, and on the implications of the 2020 pandemic, this volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of environment studies, development studies, international relations, sustainable development and evaluation, as well as practitioners in international organizations and development and environmental NGOs. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781003094821, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

During the past financial year, the IMF’s 189 member countries faced a number of pressing challenges. IMF work on these challenges - slower trade, declining productivity, gender inequality, inclusive growth, and debt management - is a central focus of this 2017 Annual Report.