Browse
For the latest thinking about the international financial system, monetary policy, economic development, poverty reduction, and other critical issues, subscribe to Finance & Development (F&D). This lively quarterly magazine brings you in-depth analyses of these and other subjects by the IMF’s own staff as well as by prominent international experts. Articles are written for lay readers who want to enrich their understanding of the workings of the global economy and the policies and activities of the IMF.
The Sixth Five Year Plan, as outlined in Bangladesh's Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, targets strategic growth and employment. The medium-term macroeconomic framework plan entails the involvement of both the private and public sectors. Human resources development strategy programs reaching out to the poor and the vulnerable population, as well as environment, climate change, and disaster risk management, have been included in the plan. Managing regional disparities for shared growth and strategy for raising farm productivity and agricultural growth have been outlined. Diversifying exports and developing a dynamic manufacturing sector are all inclusive in the proposed plan.
This paper highlights that agreement on an important package of reforms of vital significance to the future of the international monetary system was reached at a meeting of the Interim Committee of the Board of Governors of the IMF on the International Monetary System in Kingston, Jamaica, on January 7–8, 1976. The reforms include a substantial quota increase for almost all members, as well as an increase in access to the IMF’s resources for all member countries in the period prior to implementation of the increase in their IMF quotas, and some other amendments.
This paper discusses the appointment of A. W. Clausen as the new World Bank president. Mr. Clausen, 57, joined the Bank of America in 1949 as a trainee just out of the University of Minnesota law school and rose to become president of the San Francisco-based institution 21 years later. His career at the Bank of America spanned 31 years, and he played an important role in the bank’s expansion in the United States and overseas. Mr. Clausen has been bestowed many honors, including the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.
This paper highlights that despite severe limitations of resources, developing countries have made substantial progress during the past three decades in sending more children to school and in generally improving their education systems. Enrollment of children in schools at all levels has expanded at unprecedented rates. There has been a significant decline in the proportion of adults who are illiterate—from 44 percent in 1950 to 32 percent in 1975. Public expenditures for education have increased steadily in developing countries to reach roughly the same share of national product as in industrialized countries.
This paper highlights that in the first quarter of 1979, the IMF took further steps to enhance its ability to promote orderly world economic growth with reasonable price stability as a means of achieving a stable system of exchange rates. It adopted several measures designed to make the special drawing right the principal reserve asset in the world monetary system. The Interim Committee reaffirmed these aims, expressing broad support for measures that the IMF’s Executive Board has adopted, or is actively considering, in furthering these goals.
This paper reviews the speech delivered by Mr. Robert S. McNamara, President of the World Bank in Geneva in an address to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations on July 23, 1979. In McNamara’s opinion, the “massive disparities” of living standards in the world are likely to continue. For his address, Mr. McNamara drew on projections and analyses from the World Development Report, 1979, of the World Bank. Mr. McNamara also emphasized the interdependence of the developed and developing countries.