SSA speaks to the IMF

The Governor of the South African Central Bank gave a statement at the IMF last month on behalf of twenty or so Sub-Saharan countries. The text is at http://www.imf.org/External/spring/2008/imfc/statement/eng/zaf.pdf.

The Governor gave advice on the IMF's future, of a form more usual in the other direction: how the IMF can save money, how it should reduce staff numbers, how its voting arrangements should interact with its financial ones, how it should improve its operations, and so on. The pressure might be unpleasant for the IMF, but the advice was sufficiently general to allow for flexibility in its implementation. Moreover, the IMF is supragovernmental, and a monopolistic or an oligopolistic leader in provision of finance and advice to developing countries. It faces limited pressure from competition, so some demands from users are helpful in improving it.