Following the global financial crisis of 2008-09, regional financing arrangements (RFAs) have been recognized as an important layer of the global financial safety net. This paper summarizes the current landscape of RFAs, and discusses IMF-RFA coordination to date and options for enhancing cooperation going forward. In so doing, it intends to contribute to discussions underway at international fora and solicit views from the Fund and RFA memberships on how to enhance cooperation

Following the global financial crisis of 2008-09, regional financing arrangements (RFAs) have been recognized as an important layer of the global financial safety net. This paper summarizes the current landscape of RFAs, and discusses IMF-RFA coordination to date and options for enhancing cooperation going forward. In so doing, it intends to contribute to discussions underway at international fora and solicit views from the Fund and RFA memberships on how to enhance cooperation.

The Global Financial Safety Net (GFSN) has expanded considerably since 2008, including in the non-traditional elements of the safety net such as Regional Financing Arrangements (RFAs). The resulting multi-layered structure of the GFSN makes collaboration between its various elements more important than in the past. Specifically, stronger collaboration between the Fund and RFAs would help increase the effective firepower of the GFSN and ensure a timely deployment of resources. The Fund’s experience in macroeconomic adjustment and its universal risk pooling would combine with the greater regional knowledge and country ownership brought the RFA. In this way, improved collaboration between the Fund and RFAs, including in co-financing, would significantly reduce the risk of contagion by encouraging countries to seek early assistance from the Fund. This paper is part of a broader set of proposals to fortify the GFSN (IMF, 2017b, c, d). It proposes both modalities for collaboration—across capacity development, surveillance, and lending—and some operational principles to help guide future co-lending between the Fund and the various RFAs. To date, the only operational guidance to facilitate collaboration has been limited to the high-level 2011 G20 Principles for Cooperation between the IMF and RFAs. Building on several case studies and the principles derived from them, this paper proposes an operational framework for future engagement. It aims to start a more structured dialogue between the Fund and individual RFAs on the modalities of how best to work together.

An account of the significant though gradual, uneven, disconnected, ad hoc, and pragmatic innovations in global financial governance and developmental finance induced by the global financial crisis. In When Things Don't Fall Apart, Ilene Grabel challenges the dominant view that the global financial crisis had little effect on global financial governance and developmental finance. Most observers discount all but grand, systemic ruptures in institutions and policy. Grabel argues instead that the global crisis induced inconsistent and ad hoc discontinuities in global financial governance and developmental finance that are now having profound effects on emerging market and developing economies. Grabel's chief normative claim is that the resulting incoherence in global financial governance is productive rather than debilitating. In the age of productive incoherence, a more complex, dense, fragmented, and pluripolar form of global financial governance is expanding possibilities for policy and institutional experimentation, policy space for economic and human development, financial stability and resilience, and financial inclusion. Grabel draws on key theoretical commitments of Albert Hirschman to cement the case for the productivity of incoherence. Inspired by Hirschman, Grabel demonstrates that meaningful change often emerges from disconnected, erratic, experimental, and inconsistent adjustments in institutions and policies as actors pragmatically manage in an evolving world. Grabel substantiates her claims with empirically rich case studies that explore the effects of recent crises on networks of financial governance (such as the G-20); transformations within the IMF; institutional innovations in liquidity support and project finance from the national to the transregional levels; and the “rebranding” of capital controls. Grabel concludes with a careful examination of the opportunities and risks associated with the evolutionary transformations underway.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. International financial crises have plagued the world in recent decades, including the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s, the East Asian crisis of the late twentieth century, and the global financial crisis of 2007-09. One of the basic problems faced during these crises is the lack of adequate preventive mechanisms, as well as insufficient instruments to finance countries in crisis and to overcome their over-indebtedness. Resetting the International Monetary (Non)System provides an analysis of the global monetary system and the necessary reforms that it should undergo to play an active role in the twenty-first century and proposes a comprehensive yet evolutionary reform of the system. Criticising the ad hoc framework- a "(non)system"- that has evolved following the breakdown of the Bretton Woods arrangement in the early 1970's, Resetting the International Monetary (Non)System places a special focus on the asymmetries that emerging and developing countries face, analysing the controversial management of crises by the International Monetary Fund and proposing a consistent set of reform proposals to design a better system of international monetary cooperation. Policy orientated and structured to deal in a sequential way with the issues involved, it suggests provision of international liquidity through a system that mixes the multicurrency arrangement with a more active use of the IMF's Special Drawing Rights; stronger mechanisms of macroeconomic policy cooperation, including greater cooperation in exchange rate management and freedom to manage capital flows; additional automatic balance-of-payments financing facilities and the complementary use of swap and regional arrangements; a multilateral sovereign debt workout mechanism; and major reforms of the system's governance.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a pivotal institution in global economic governance tasked with ensuring monetary stability and preventing financial crises through promoting balanced trade, economic growth, and poverty reduction. It also plays a powerful normative role by shaping economic policies worldwide through its research and expertise. The IMF played a crucial role in managing crises like the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, providing significant financial aid and advocating for stimulus measures. However, the IMF faces both internal and external challenges from reforming its governance structure to better represent emerging economies to finding its place in a world increasingly defying liberal internationalism and multilateralism. Despite reforms, power remains concentrated among advanced economies, hindering inclusivity and trust, particularly in regions like sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitical tensions, populist nationalism, and economic imbalances further strain the IMF's effectiveness. This handbook aims to uncover these challenges by providing diverse perspectives and proposing policy recommendations that the Fund could undertake to better navigate the complex landscape of 21st-century global governance. Part I delves into its historical origins and key debates of the IMF. Part II focuses on formal operations such as lending, surveillance, and capacity development. Part III explores the involvement of different actors including states, markets, and civil society. Part IV discusses partnerships with other international organizations and collaboration in financial regulation. Part V analyzes shifts in policy instruments and ideological frameworks. Part VI broadens concerns to include gender mainstreaming, labor markets, climate policy, and inclusive growth. Part VII addresses internal challenges including cultural diversity concerns and uniformity of treatment. Part VIII evaluates external challenges such as populist movements, China's influence, global inequality and unresolved issues in Europe. Part IX explores how the IMF can meet the multiple challenges identified in this volume and positively impact 21st century global governance.

Tangled Governance addresses the institutions that were deployed to fight the euro crisis, reestablish financial stability in Europe, and prevent contagion to the rest of the world. Henning explains why European leaders chose to include the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the crisis response and provides a detailed account of the decisions of the institutions that make up the troika (the European Commission, European Central Bank, and IMF). He examines the institutions negotiating strategies, the outcomes of their interaction, and the effectiveness of their cooperation. The institutional strategies of key member states, including Germany and the United States, are also explored in this study. The book locates its analysis within the framework of regime complexity, involving clusters of overlapping and intersecting regional and multilateral institutions. It tests conjectures in the regime-complexity literature against the seven cases of financial rescues of euro area countries that were stricken by crises between 2010 and 2015. Tangled Governance concludes that states use some institutions to control others, that complexity is the consequence of a strategy to control agency drift. States mediate conflicts among institutions and thereby limit fragmentation of the regime complex and underpin substantive efficacy. In reaching these conclusions, the book also answers several key puzzles, including why Germany and other northern European countries supported IMF inclusion despite its adopting positions opposed to their preferences; why crisis fighting arrangements endured intense conflicts among the institutions; and, finally, why the United States and the IMF promoted further steps to complete the monetary union.