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“Quo Vadis IMF ? A Reform Debate”

The Reform of the International Monetary Fund (October, 2001)
One-Day NGO Strategy Workshop
organized by the Heinrich Böll Foundation,
World Ecology, Economy and Development (WEED)
and the Global Policy Forum
as part of a series of events accompanying
the Financing for Development (FfD) Process

Monday, October 22, 2001
8:30 am – 5:30 pm

Brookings Institution, Stein Room
1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20036
(Metro Station Dupont Circle, South Exit)

P R O G R A M

PART I:        TAKING STOCK

8:30 – 8:45 am      Welcome and Introduction
                              A Brief Overview over the IMF Reform Debate among NGOs

8:45 – 10 am      Session I:
                           Current Reform Steps at the IMF: Sufficient, Thorough
                           and Concerted or Inconsequential, Few and Far Between?

                           Open discussion and information exchange among NGOs about their
                           assessment of current reform efforts (transparency, surveillance,
                           standards and codes, conditionality, information disclosure, private
                           sector involvement); where do different civil society groups find
                           common ground, where do they differ? Which issues have NGOs so far
                           failed to address? Which knowledge gaps need to be filled?

10 – 10:15 am     Coffee Break

PART II:      MOVING FORWARD – AN NGO REFORM AGENDA

10:15 – 11:30 am   Session II:
                             The IMF, Financial Stability and Monetary Policy

                             Surveillance, regional arrangements, the discussion about currency target zones

                             Presenter: Rainer Falk, WEED, Germany

11:30 – 11:45 am   Coffee Break

11:45 am – 1 pm    Session III:
                              Lending and Capital Liquidity

                             Review and change of IMF macroeconomic and financial policy
                             recommendations; future and content of IMF conditionality; the IMF’s
                             involvement in poverty reduction and debt relief; the IMF’s role in
                             development finance in light of recent events

                             Presenter: Angela Wood, Bretton Woods Project, UK

1 – 2:30 pm           Lunch Break

2:30 – 3:45 pm      Session IV:
                             The IMF and Governance Issues

                             Division of labor with UN agencies and the World Bank; transparency /
                             democratic control, country representation and voting structure;
                             accountability issues; NGO and civil society involvement

                             Presenter: N.N., Third World Network, Malaysia

3:45 – 4 pm          Coffee Break

4 – 5:30 pm          Session V:
                             Strategies of NGO Engagement in the Reform Process

                             What are the next steps for NGOs campaigns and activities? Does
                             NGO strategy need readjustment / refocusing in light of the Sept. 11
                             events? How to achieve closer NGO cooperation across borders? How
                             to focus NGO intervention in the FfD Process?

5:30 pm      End of Workshop

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