An authoritative review of the position of the IMF and World Bank in their sixtieth year.

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A unique title considering the challenges to the World Bank's development goals and reducing world poverty.

This book seeks to provide objective analysis of the role and effectiveness of multilaterals in general and the IMF and World Bank in particular. The IMF is a multilateral financial institution with a mandate to promote financial and macroeconomic stability, cooperative economic policies, and a balanced growth of international trade. More than two fifths of its 185 members are low-income countries and many others have substantial pockets of poverty in their populations. Since economic development and the reduction of poverty are the most important economic challenges that these countries face, how can the IMF best help them? How can the imperative of macroeconomic and financial stability be reconciled with the requirements for sustained economic growth? This volume brings together the research of leading economists, political scientists, and historians to suggest ways for the IMF to address these issues effectively.

The debate on whether or not the International Monetary Fund and World Bank and their intervention strategies are a positive force for change in the developing world continues to rage. Featuring both macroeconomic and microeconomic approaches, this book brings together an international team of contributors and centres upon three broad themes: the ideology of the IMF and World Bank poverty reduction conditionality. In exploring these themes, this book will be a valuable reference for postgraduate students and professionals in the fields of development studies and political economy.

IMF conditionality has been severely criticised by developing countries, who accuse the Fund of unjustly provoking political turmoil and causing poverty. This refers to the policies that a member country is required to follow in order to be able to use the Fund's resources. Conditionality is legally based on the requirement to adopt `adequate safeguards' for the use of resources as stipulated by the IMF's Articles of Agreement. This work focuses on legal implications and policy aspects and, more specifically, on the question of how far-reaching the requirement of `adequate safeguards' may be. Furthermore, the author demonstrates that conditionality is also affected by cooperative arrangements with other institutions, such as the World Bank and United Nations. A major conclusion is that there should be improvements in cooperation and in the monitoring of the application of Fund law on conditionality. Scholars and students who take a deep interest in international economic relations will find this book a unique opportunity to study the legal framework of conditionality. Government officials preparing for negotiations with the Fund will also benefit from reading this work.