Some IMF staff are “unduly influenced” at work, even though there are many safeguards.
(Reuters) – WashingtonAccording to an internal survey released Thursday as part of a review of data integrity standards that found “robust mechanisms” for institutional governance in general, nearly 20% of International Monetary Fund staff say their work has been “unduly influenced” by supervisors.
The IMF’s Executive Board started the review last year after it was said in September 2021 that IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva had put pressure on World Bank staff in 2017 when she was in charge of the development lender to change data in favour of China.
The IMF board decided to keep Georgieva as IMF managing director after a weeks-long investigation into China’s higher ranking in the World Bank’s “Doing Business” report, which has since been discontinued. However, the review of the Fund’s data integrity policies is still going on.
In its review of institutional safeguards, the IMF found that the Fund “generally has robust mechanisms in place to ensure a high standard of institutional governance and analytical integrity, as well as well-developed mechanisms to help IMF members prepare robust data.”
It said that the IMF’s dispute resolution system was similar to those of other international organisations and that it gave employees “many formal and informal ways” to talk about problems at work.
But it did say that there were some problems with the system, like how the internal review process makes it more likely that staff will choose topics for country reviews that are important to the Fund but not to the country.
The IMF said in the report that in general, the Fund’s culture doesn’t give staff enough reasons to disagree.
The report said that a working group on the integrity of data and analysis said that more should be done to clarify the roles of management and country executive directors in country analyses done by staff and to strengthen the independence of staff analyses.
The IMF’s internal review system should also be more open and well-documented, says the report. The fund’s Office of Internal Audit should look into this.
