During FY2015, the IMF Executive Board discussed the IEO evaluations Recurring Issues from a Decade of Evaluation: Lessons for the IMF and the IMF Response to the Financial and Economic Crisis. The IEO also issued two reports updating three earlier evaluations. The first report covered the 2005 IEO evaluation of The IMF’s Approach to Capital Account Liberalization, and the second one updated two evaluations covering low-income countries: The IMF’s Role in PRSPs and the PRGF (2004) and The IMF and Aid to Sub-Saharan Africa (2007). In addition, the IEO has three ongoing evaluations: self-evaluation at the IMF, data and statistics, and the IMF and the euro area crisis.
In June 2014, the Executive Board considered the Sixth Periodic Monitoring Report, which tracks the implementation of actions in response to Board-endorsed IEO recommendations from previous evaluations. During this financial year, no Management Implementation Plan was issued for Board consideration.
The remainder of this chapter reports on the IEO budget and outreach efforts in the financial year. Chapter 2 summarizes the evaluations on Recurring Issues and the IMF Response to the Financial and Economic Crisis, the Board discussions of these evaluations, and the two updates of past evaluations. Chapter 3 discusses follow-up on IEO evaluations. Chapter 4 addresses ongoing evaluations and the IEO work program going forward. Table 1 lists the IEO evaluations and evaluation updates completed or in progress.
Budget and Staffing
In FY2015, the IEO expended approximately 92 percent of its total budgetary resources, including the approved budget amount and the resources authorized to be carried forward from FY2014. These expenditures amounted to 97 percent of its approved budget. Appendix 1 details the IEO budget and expenditures for FY2015.
On March 12, 2015, the Executive Board approved the IEO FY2016 budget proposal of $5.8 million, representing zero real growth over FY2015. This budget, along with a carryover of unspent funds from FY2015 of up to 5 percent of the authorized FY2015 budget, will allow the IEO to meet the demands of its FY2016 work program. The FY2016 work program includes three ongoing evaluations, the launch of two new evaluations, and the preparation of two evaluation updates. The IEO also presented indicative budgets for FY2017 and FY2018, also based on zero real growth.
Outreach and Communication
Outreach is critical to achieving the IEO’s objectives. It is also an important tool for informing stakeholders about IEO evaluations and thereby increasing their impact. To publicize and encourage discussion of its work, the IEO organized or participated in a number of events in FY2015. These are listed in Appendix 2.
The IEO actively uses its website, along with email communication with subscribers, to publicize its work and to solicit public comments on ongoing, future, and completed evaluations. The website (www.ieo-imf.org) serves as a publicly accessible repository of all IEO work.