Open Letter · Spring Meetings 2026 · Day 2 · April 14, 2026
An Open Letter to the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund on the Independence and Mandate of the Independent Evaluation Office
On 81 Years Without a Project Rating System, a Structurally Disempowered Evaluation Office, and What Genuine Accountability Would Require
Dear Managing Director Georgieva,
Yesterday’s letter asked five questions about the $3.4 billion Nigeria COVID emergency disbursement and the conviction of the Accountant General. This letter concerns the institutional architecture that made that outcome possible — and that makes it likely to recur.
The IMF has been lending to sovereign governments for 81 years. It operates programmes in 149 countries. It has never — not once — produced a project-level rating of whether those programmes delivered their stated objectives. The World Bank rates every completed project. The African Development Bank rates every completed project. The Asian Development Bank rates every completed project and publishes the gap between management ratings and independent evaluator ratings. The IMF does none of this.
The Independent Evaluation Office was established in 2001 to provide independent assessment of IMF policies and activities. In 25 years it has produced valuable thematic work — on programme design, on surveillance, on the pandemic response. But the IEO does not rate individual country programmes. It cannot tell you whether the programme in Nigeria in 2020 worked. It cannot tell you whether the programme in Ghana in 2023 worked. It produces thematic reports rather than programme-level accountability for individual country outcomes.
This is not an accident. It is a design choice. And the design choice has consequences that the Nigeria COVID case makes concrete.
The IEO’s structural constraints are worth stating plainly. The IEO Director is appointed by and reports to the Executive Board — not to an independent oversight body. The IEO budget is determined by management. The IEO has no power to compel the disclosure of documents. Its recommendations are advisory. Management’s response to IEO findings is published alongside those findings — which means the institution being evaluated has equal editorial space to contest the evaluation in the same document. When the IEO’s 2023 evaluation of the IMF’s COVID emergency response found that the governance framework was “a checklist,” management’s response was published in the same report. The finding stands. The structural mechanism for translating that finding into institutional change is not clearly defined.
Compare this to the World Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group, which reports to the Board rather than management, has its own budget allocation protected by Board resolution, and produces project-level ratings that are published regardless of whether management agrees with them. The IEG is imperfect — this platform has documented its imperfections at length — but it is structurally more independent than the IEO. The Asian Development Bank’s Independent Evaluation Department goes further still: it validates 100 percent of management’s project completion reports and publishes the gap between management ratings and IED ratings, by name, by project, by year. That gap is currently 12 percentage points. It is published. It is not resolved. But it is visible.
At the IMF, the gap is not published. It is not measured. There is no mechanism to measure it, because there are no project ratings to compare against.
This letter asks five questions about the IEO’s mandate and independence. They are addressed to you because you are the Managing Director and because the IEO’s structural position — reporting to the Board but funded and operationally constrained by management — means that meaningful reform requires your office’s active support.
The IMF asks sovereign governments to accept conditionality, to publish their fiscal data, to submit to Article IV surveillance, and to reform their institutions as a condition of access to Fund resources. The standard the IMF applies to its borrowers — transparency, accountability, measurable outcomes — is precisely the standard the institution should apply to itself. The absence of project ratings is not a technical gap. It is an accountability gap that protects the institution from the consequences of its own decisions while those consequences fall entirely on the countries that borrowed the money.
The Spring Meetings are the right place to commit to changing this. The shareholders are in the room. The question is whether the will exists.
Respectfully,
Parminder Brar
Founder, mdbreform.com
Former World Bank Country Manager and Lead Governance Specialist
April 14, 2026
The full IMF analysis series — ratings, governance, COVID, mandate duplication, and the structural accountability gap: Kofi and the Six Ships
Yesterday’s letter on the Nigeria $3.4bn COVID disbursement: Open Letter to the IMF Managing Director — Day 1
The seven questions for the Spring Meetings: Spring Meetings 2026 Brief