Global Policy Forum

By John Burgess

Outgoing IMF Managing Director, Michel Camdessus has acknowledged that the International Monetary Fund, an advocate of economic rationality and discipline, will never be a popular institution. Camdessus, interviewed by a fund publication called IMF Survey, also said that the IMF had failed to adequately explain itself to the public. "it is only very recently that we realised that the conventional interpretation of our purposes might not be serving us well," he said in remarks set for publication of December 13.

Camdessus last month announced he would step down for personal reasons in mid-February, half way through his third five-year term, during which the IMF was pilloried for its failure to predict the Asian financial crisis of 1997. When the fund did intervene, arranging international financial rescue packages for struggling economies, it was denounced in the U.S. Congress for having bailed out imprudent foreign creditors.

Other critics, notably in academic circles, charged that the IMF's insistence on high interest rates, stable currencies and spending cuts increased the burden on working people Camdessus said the IMF had been made a scapegoat in the crisis, which had "obscured our members' perception of the good things we could do for and with them."

"We will never be seen as a very popular institution," he told IMF Survey. "Why? Fundamentally, because, in general, we work on behalf of economic rationality, and rationality is not the most attractive of qualities in human and social life. "But on a deeper level, we will never be very popular because we are serious about country ownership of policies and programmes. When a country adopts a policy and implements it with determination and succeeds, it is the country that declares victory, not the IMF, even though we may have played some part in this success. "So, the rule is: Others claim success, while we must recognise our mistakes."

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