To assess the IMF’s work on FCS, the evaluation poses the following questions:
The effectiveness of IMF engagement
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▶ How much impact has the IMF had in FCS?
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▶ Have the IMF’s existing lending and non-lending instruments been adequate to meet the needs of FCS?
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▶ How effective has IMF capacity development work been in FCS?
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▶ Has the IMF’s engagement been sufficiently tailored to the country-specific circumstances of FCS?
The frameworks and procedures of IMF engagement
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▶ How well has the IMF collaborated with development partners in FCS?
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▶ How effectively has the IMF managed its human resources for its work on FCS?
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▶ How has the IMF handled security issues in high-risk locations?
To answer these questions, the evaluation team gathered evidence from the following sources:
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▶ Desk reviews of public and internal IMF documents, including Executive Board papers on Fund policies, working group reports, interdepartmental memoranda, and memoranda to IMF management;
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▶ Statistical analysis of FCS macroeconomic performance;
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▶ Interviews with current and former IMF staff, including department directors and other senior staff as well as mission chiefs and resident representatives assigned to FCS;
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▶ A survey of current IMF staff;
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▶ Interviews with IMF Executive Directors and members of their staff;
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▶ Interviews with current and former senior government and central bank officials of current and former FCS;
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▶ Consultations with representatives of development partners, including donor governments and multilateral institutions, academic experts, and civil society representatives.
The evaluation assesses the IMF’s overall approaches to its FCS work and the effectiveness of its engagement with individual fragile states. In identifying the universe of current and former fragile states, it relies on the lists of fragile states used by the IMF staff ‘s internal reviews of its work issued in 2008 and 2015 (IMF, 2008a, 2015c).8 As case studies, the evaluation team chose 16 of the 53 countries identified, on the basis of their diversity in geographical distribution and experience as well as the IEO’s judgment of the potential to learn from their experience (Box 1). For the case study countries, the evaluation team complemented a desk study of public and internal documents and interviews of relevant IMF staff with interviews of current and former senior government and central bank officials as well as development partners and local country experts (mostly accomplished through site visits but also through teleconferences and group meetings in third countries). In addition, the evaluation team examined documents, interviewed IMF staff, or interviewed government and central bank officials for eight additional countries whose experience raised particular issues.
Focus Countries for the Evaluation
Case study countries (16):
Africa: Angola, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone
Asia-Pacific: Cambodia, Myanmar, Timor-Leste
Europe: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo
Middle East-Central Asia: Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia
Western Hemisphere: Haiti
Additional focus countries (8):
Central African Republic, Kiribati, Lao PDR, Solomon Islands, South Sudan, Sudan, West Bank and Gaza,1 Yemen
1 A territory that is not an independent member of the Fund.To be most relevant in drawing lessons for the future, the evaluation focuses on the period 2011–16, which followed an intensification of IMF efforts in 2011 to improve engagement with FCS. Since historical context often matters in the discussion of state fragility, the evaluation also examines the IMF’s country engagements over a longer period where appropriate. Especially in the case of post-conflict states where open conflict ended many years ago, the evaluation assesses how the IMF engaged with the countries in the immediate aftermath of the conflict. The evaluation reflects developments through 2017, while taking care not to offer judgement on current operations.
In conducting this evaluation, the IEO received the full support of IMF staff, who supplied a large volume of internal documents dating back to the early 2000s or even the mid-1990s in some cases. All in all, the evaluation team interviewed more than 200 former and current members of staff, and more than 280 current members of staff participated in the staff survey.9 Likewise, the team interviewed more than 200 former and current senior officials of member states that were characterized as fragile at least at some point during 2008–15, as well as more than 150 officials of donor governments and multilateral institutions. In addition, the IEO organized seminars and other outreach events to gather input and views of academics and other experts in Amman, London, and Washington, and interacted with members of the LSE–Oxford Commission on State Fragility, Growth, and Development.