International Monetary Found

About the IMF

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an organization of 188 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world.

Key IMF activities

The IMF supports its membership by providing

• policy advice to governments and central banks based on analysis of economic trends and cross-country experiences;

• research, statistics, forecasts, and analysis based on tracking of global, regional, and individual economies and markets;

• loans to help countries overcome economic difficulties;

• concessional loans to help fight poverty in developing countries; and

• technical assistance and training to help countries improve the management of their economies.

Membership

• The IMF currently has a near-global membership of 188 countries. To become a member, a country must apply and then be accepted by a majority of the existing members. In April 2012, Republic of South Sudan joined the IMF, becoming the institution's 188th member.

• A member country's quota defines its financial and organizational relationship with the IMF, including: Subscriptions, Voting powder, Access to financing, SDR Allocations.

History

The IMF has played a part in shaping the global economy since the end of World War II.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, countries attempted to shore up their failing economies by sharply raising barriers to foreign trade, devaluing their currencies to compete against each other for export markets, and curtailing their citizens' freedom to hold foreign exchange. These attempts proved to be self-defeating. World trade declined sharply, and employment and living standards plummeted in many countries.

This breakdown in international monetary cooperation led the IMF's founders to plan an institution charged with overseeing the international monetary system—the system of exchange rates and international payments that enables countries and their citizens to buy goods and services from each other. The new global entity would ensure exchange rate stability and encourage its member countries to eliminate exchange restrictions that hindered trade.

For most of the first decade of the 21st century, international capital flows fueled a global expansion that enabled many countries to repay money they had borrowed from the IMF and other official creditors and to accumulate foreign exchange

...