Afghanistan’s development, humanitarian, and governance challenges are formidable. Afghanistan is in its transition to become self-reliant. To achieve this goal, the government requires donor support. The IMF-supported economic program tries to address key macroeconomic challenges and seeks to safeguard the financial sector. The authorities have broadly met their program objectives, but their implementation suffered from delays. The authorities have now initiated an asset recovery process for each Kabul Bank beneficiary. The Executive Board has agreed to the authorities’ request for a waiver.

This paper discusses Afghanistan’s Third Review Under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) Arrangement and Request for Modification of Performance Criteria (PCs). Program implementation through end-December 2017 was satisfactory, despite the challenging security situation and mounting political risks. All quantitative PCs and eight of the nine structural benchmarks were met. The end-April 2018 benchmark related to asset declarations by public officials was implemented with a short delay. The IMF staff supports the completion of the third review under the ECF arrangement and the authorities’ request for a modification of three PCs for June 2018.