Of 763 programmes between 1980 and 2015, 512 were interrupted, of which 291 did not resume – as our data from the IMF Monitor Database shows. This is a very high failure rate given that the IMF enters into every agreement on the basis that it wants to see it completed.
AuthorThomas Stubbs
Thomas Stubbs is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Royal Holloway, University of London, and a Research Associate in Political Economy at the Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
He is also the curator of IMF Monitor, a website used by civil society and policymakers to track policy reforms required of borrowing countries in exchange for the IMF’s financial support.