The International Monetary Fund is the global financial institution responsible for promoting international monetary cooperation, securing financial stability, and providing emergency lending to member countries facing balance-of-payments crises. Founded at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944, it has been one of the two principal pillars of the post-war international financial architecture, alongside the World Bank.
At a glance
- Founded: 1944 (Bretton Woods Conference (United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference) 1–22 July 1944; IMF began financial operations 1 March 1947)
- Headquarters: usa-state/washington/" data-it-autolink="1">Washington, D.C., United States
- Official languages: English
- Website: www.imf.org
Mission
The IMF's three core functions are surveillance (regular monitoring of member economies and the global financial system), lending (financial assistance to countries in balance-of-payments difficulty), and capacity development (technical assistance and training in macroeconomic policy).
Structure
The Board of Governors, with one governor per member country (typically the finance minister or central bank governor), is the highest authority. The Executive Board of 24 directors handles day-to-day operations. The Managing Director — by long-standing convention a European — chairs the Executive Board and serves a five-year renewable term. The First Deputy Managing Director is by convention an American.
Member states
The IMF has 190 member countries — virtually every sovereign state in the world. The few non-members include North Korea, Cuba, Liechtenstein, Monaco, and several small Pacific microstates.
Key facts
- Voting power is weighted by quota — financial contribution to the Fund — rather than equal per state. The United States holds enough quota share (approximately 17 percent) to veto major decisions requiring 85 percent supermajority.
- The IMF's Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), a synthetic reserve asset, are valued against a basket of five currencies: US dollar, euro, Chinese renminbi, Japanese yen, and pound sterling.
- Argentina has historically been the IMF's largest borrower; its 2018 standby arrangement of $57 billion was the largest single Fund programme in history at the time.
- The Managing Director has been European since the Fund's founding by an informal agreement between the United States and Europe; reform proposals to open the role globally have repeatedly stalled.
- The IMF and World Bank hold joint Annual Meetings each autumn, alternating between Washington and other host cities.
Historic milestones
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1944 | Bretton Woods Conference founds the IMF |
| 1947 | IMF begins financial operations |
| 1971 | Bretton Woods system collapses; Nixon ends gold convertibility |
| 1982 | Latin American debt crisis begins; IMF role expands |
| 1997 | Asian financial crisis; major IMF programmes for Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea |
| 2008 | Global financial crisis; G20 mandates IMF resource expansion |
| 2020 | COVID-19 emergency lending exceeds $250 billion across over 90 countries |
