Advocacy letter on IMF consultations framework by global civil society.

South-North civil society call for the IMF to establish a consultations framework in its operations.

A group of 17 civil society organizations representing 10 countries and several international groups have sent a letter to the IMF calling for a consultations framework to be put in place, premised on the timely disclosure of information. The letter highlights the unacceptably secretive manner in which the IMF has pursued the reform of its governance structure, as well as the lack of any substantive documentation on the Fund's internal restructuring processes. The various groups that collaborated on this advocacy initiative are: Action Aid International; African Network on Debt and Development; BanglaPraxis, Bangladesh; Bank Information Center (BIC), U.S.; Bretton Woods Project, U.K.; Center of Concern, U.S.; European Network on Debt and Development (EURODAD); Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA), South Africa; Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection/Jubilee-Zambia, Zambia; Latin American Network on Debt, Development and Rights; New Rules for Global Finance Coalition, U.S.; Oxfam International; Social Watch, Uruguay; Third World Institute, Uruguay; Uganda Coalition for Sustainable Development, Uganda; Voices for Interactive Choice & Empowerment, Bangladesh. The letter calls upon the IMF to define a framework for public consultations which includes the automatic disclosure of documents in a timely fashion. Such a framework should apply to all, or most, of the IMF’s operations and processes, ranging from country-based negotiations on surveillance; technical assistance, and/or loans; staff policy design; reviews of policies and programs; institution-wide reforms, and Executive Board decision-making. In addition, IMF officials should also encourage countries’ governments to seriously involve external stakeholders in these processes. Consultations within countries should include government ministries, such as health and education, independent economists and academic specialists, national civil society and labor unions. As a first step toward a framework for informed public consultations, the IMF should publish the final reports of the five working groups in the Interim Work Program, scheduled to conclude by the Spring Meetings in 2008. Consultations should occur within countries where external stakeholders have expressed interest in consultations, as well as in Washington, D.C. IMF Mission Teams that visit countries to review loan agreements or conduct annual surveillance must participate in explicit and open consultations with a wide range of external stakeholders, not just with the nation’s Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank.