2017 Article IV Consultation and Eighth Review Under the Policy Support Instrument-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director Uganda
The IMF is helping low-income countries hit by high food prices take appropriate policy action while providing financial assistance to some of the worst-affected nations, Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said.
This Selected Issues paper on Bangladesh underlies the export performance of readymade garment industry and inflation dynamics. Bangladesh has demonstrated that it is highly competitive in the world’s major garment markets. Inflation inertia, monetary factors, and exchange rate fluctuations are the main determinants of inflation in Bangladesh. Despite adoption of numerous tax policy measures during the past few years, policies implemented by the Bangladesh authorities have not been fully successful in lifting the revenue ratio to a level warranted by developmental objectives.
This paper highlights that the current round of trade talks under the auspices of the World Trade Organization aims at better integrating developing countries—especially the small and poor ones—into the global trading system. For that reason, it was named the Doha Development Agenda when it was launched in late 2001. However, more than three years on, little progress has been made. It took a late July 2004 accord outlining “negotiating frameworks” in agriculture and industrial products just to keep the talks afloat.
Global food aid serves as a critical safety net for poor countries. But does food aid reach those who most need it when they most need it? And, more broadly, has it generally been effective in “smoothing” consumption patterns—that is, averting sharp changes in the overall availability offood? In a new IMF Working Paper, “Foreign Aid and Consumption Smoothing: Evidence from Global Food Aid,” Sanjeev Gupta, Benedict Clements, and Erwin R. Tiongson examine the cyclical properties offood aid and evaluate how successful it has been in helping the economies it targets.
This paper describes the need to broaden the agenda for poverty reduction. The broadening of the agenda follows from a growing understanding that poverty is more than low income, a lack of education, and poor health. The poor are frequently powerless to influence the social and economic factors that determine their well being. The paper highlights that a broader definition of poverty requires a broader set of actions to fight it and increases the challenge of measuring poverty and comparing achievement across countries and over time.