The authorities have requested a new ECF-supported program, to deepen reforms undertaken under the previous program (completed in July 2024). They have also requested a program under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF)

The Gambia hosted the 15th Summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in early May 2024-the second largest intergovernmental organization in the world. Economic recovery is strengthening, while inflation has trended down, albeit slowly. Despite strong revenue collection efforts, the...

The transition to clean energy offers opportunities for developing economies and least-developed countries (LDCs) to exploit the export potential of this transition and to accelerate their growth prospects. The WTO-led Aid for Trade initiative provides significant support to these economies to...

Guinea-Bissau continues to face a challenging economic and political environment. Recent downward shocks to cashew exports are adding pressures to the balance of payments and fiscal revenue. Tightening of regional financial conditions continue to raise borrowing costs. Since the political crisis...

On March 22, 2023, the IMF Executive Board approved 38-month Extended Credit Facility (ECF) and Extended Fund Facility (EFF) arrangements with Papua New Guinea to help address a protracted balance of payments need, manifested in foreign exchange shortages, and to support the authorities' reforms...

Real GDP growth stalled at 3.8 percent in 2023, dampened by the deterioration of global economic prospects and the negative effect of electoral uncertainty on investment. After peaking in March 2023, inflationary pressures have eased. Led by a new presidential mandate, the authorities are...

Context and outlook. Economic growth is recovering from the impact of the unfavorable global economic environment and domestic factors. Growth is expected to continue strengthening, supported by improvements in the business environment and subsiding global commodity prices. Inflation is...

Côte d'Ivoire is highly exposed to climate change through rising temperatures and sea levels as well as rain pattern changes. Economic vulnerabilities to climate change are mostly due to the country's heavy reliance on agriculture, and the concentration of industrial and services activity in...

This study explores the impact of International Monetary Fund (IMF)-linked conditionality on government education expenditures in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Understanding the impact of conditional lending by international financial institutions on education spending is...

This paper presents Cabo Verde's Third Review under the Extended Credit Facility Arrangement, Request for Modification of Performance Criteria, and Request for an Arrangement under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility. Performance under the economic reform program is strong, and the...

This paper discusses Benin's Third Review under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) and the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) Arrangements and Request for an Arrangement under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF). Robust tax collection is supporting fiscal consolidation, complementing...

This paper presents Guinea-Bissau's Sixth Review under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF), Request for a Waiver of Nonobservance of Performance Criteria, and financing assurances review. The authorities' commitment to a range of challenging policy reforms is starting to show some results. They...

Drawing from a growing body of literature on development aid in fragile contexts, this paper investigates the effectiveness of COVID-19 aid in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The paper uses the OECD's Principles for Good International Engagement in Fragile States and Situations to...

The global economy, dominated by the consequences of a disastrous health crisis and international tensions, needs policy support to regain its growth dynamic. To regain an inclusive and sustainable growth dynamic, structural policies of governments are needed to allow a reallocation of resources...

This paper analyzes Guinea-Bissau's Third Review under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) Arrangement and Requests for Augmentation of Access, Waiver of Nonobservance of Performance Criteria, Modification of a Performance Criterion, and Financing Assurances Review. Guinea Bissau's...

Guinea-Bissau is a fragile state facing significant development challenges, including sustaining the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, supply disruptions, and the global economic slowdown. The IMF Board approved the First Review of the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) arrangement in May 2023....

This paper highlights Burundi's Request for a 38-Month Arrangement under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF). Burundi faces protracted balance of payments needs with a widening current account deficit and low foreign reserves coverage, large development needs, and macroeconomic challenges...

This paper presents Niger's Third Review under the Extended Credit Facility Arrangement, Request for Extension, Rephasing, and Modification of Performance Criteria of the Extended Credit Facility Arrangement, and Request for an Arrangement under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility. The...

This paper presents Senegal's Requests for an Extended Arrangement under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF), an Arrangement under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF), and an Arrangement under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF). The Senegalese economy has been severely impacted by...

This paper highlights The Gambia's Sixth Review under the Extended Credit Facility Arrangement, Request for a Waiver of Nonobservance of a Performance Criterion, and Financing Assurances Review. The IMF Executive Board decision allows for an immediate disbursement of funds to the Gambia to help...

This paper presents Côte d'Ivoire's request for an Extended Arrangement Under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) and a 40-Month Arrangement Under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF). IMF Board approves 40-month arrangements under the EFF and ECF for Côte d'Ivoire to help support the country's...

This paper presents Benin's Second Review under the Extended Fund Facility and the Extended Credit Facility Arrangements. Program performance has been robust, with all end-September and end-December 2022 performance criteria, indicative targets met, and all structural benchmarks implemented....

This paper presents Morocco's Request for an Arrangement under the Flexible Credit Line (FCL). Morocco qualifies for the FCL by virtue of its very strong policies, institutional policy frameworks, and economic fundamentals and continued commitment to maintaining such policies in the future....

This paper presents Bangladesh's Requests for an Extended Arrangement under the Extended Fund Facility, an Arrangement under the Extended Credit Facility, and an Arrangement under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF). The authorities are concurrently requesting access to the RSF to...

This paper discusses Uganda's Second and Third Reviews under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) Arrangement, Requests for a Waiver of Nonobservance of Performance Criterion, and Rephasing of Access. The Ugandan authorities are persevering in their reforms despite facing multiple shocks from an...

This paper highlights Arab Republic of Egypt's Request for Extended Arrangement under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF). Egypt's IMF-supported program presents a comprehensive policy package to preserve macroeconomic stability, restore buffers, and pave the way for inclusive and...

The repercussions of the war in Ukraine are threatening economic and social stability. Following a slight uptick in July-August, new COVID-19 cases have declined to almost nil recently while the vaccination rate remains low at around 22 percent of the population. The Gambia is also suffering...

Supported by a large policy package, Rwanda's economy rebounded in 2021 after contracting in the preceding year due to the COVID-19 shock. However, the country now faces multi-faceted challenges-pandemic scars, headwinds from the war in Ukraine, and climate-related shocks, meanwhile inflationary...

Despite a series of economic shocks, Barbados has made good progress in implementing its Economic Recovery and Transformation (BERT) plan since the government led by Prime Minister Mia Mottley took office in May 2018. Macroeconomic stability was restored with a combination of comprehensive...

This paper discusses The Gambia's Fourth Review under the Extended Credit Facility Arrangement, Request for a Waiver of Nonobservance and Modification of a Performance Criterion, and Financing Assurances Review. Despite the various waves of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, the Gambian...

The COVID-19 pandemic severely impacted Nepal's economy. Tourist arrivals collapsed, domestic activity plummeted, and remittances have been volatile. As a result, balance of payments and fiscal financing gaps emerged. After growth was lower than expected in 2019/20, a gradual resumption in...

This working paper provides a summary of three systematic reviews on the effectiveness of aid in Afghanistan, Mali, and South Sudan between 2008 and 2021. These three countries, like all other highly fragile countries, suffer from bad governance, lack of capacity, and violence. The systematic...

We use Bayesian meta-analysis methods to estimate the impact of unconditional cash transfers (UCTs) on twelve primary outcomes from 114 studies of 72 UCT programs in middle and low income countries. Cash transfers generate strong and positive average treatment effects on ten of thirteen...

The shifting emphasis on performance evaluation and accountability in the context of external conditionality programs has brought to the fore the question of government ownership of reforms. While the concept of ownership has featured highly in recent academic and policy debates over the effects...

Substantial tariff reductions and increased usage of non-tariff measures (NTMs) have been key dynamics of global trade policy in recent decades. We use highly disaggregated data on tariffs, NTMs, and trade to investigate how IMF conditionality as a form of external pressure to reduce tariffs...

We model the aid allocation decision where the donor government has announced that good governance is the criterion for receiving aid. Potential recipients must compete for the aid funds. The structure of the competition is important to the donor in terms of achieving good governance, and to the...

Should donors who are interested in the effectiveness of developmental programs rely on conditional budget support or on project aid? To answer this question, we present a model in which only a subset of the developmental expenditures can be subject to conditionality. We show that budget support...

The Gabonese economy was gradually recovering from the 2014 oil price shock when it was hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. Decisive confinement measures have helped save lives, but the pandemic and the fall in oil prices have severely hit the economy, increasing unemployment and poverty. With a weak...

Seychelles was hit hard by the COVID-19 crisis. The authorities reacted swiftly, by locking down the economy, thereby keeping infection and fatality rates low. However, the travel restrictions and global economic downturn triggered unprecedented economic contraction. The authorities responded...