IMF: Shrink it or Sink it

The International Monetary Fund is perhaps at its most vulnerable state in years. It is suffering a triple crisis--a crisis of legitimacy, a budget crisis,and a role crisis--that is unparalleled in its 62 years of existence. These circumstances provide critics of the Fund with an opportunity to radically shrink, disempower, if not decommission it altogether. If not seized, this opportunity can slip by, and circumstances might come together to reinvigorate and save the Fund.
This document was collectively drafted over a period of two months by representatives of organizations that attended the "Strategy Session on the International Monetary Fund" at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC, on the occasion of the IMF-World Bank Spring meeting during the third week of April 2006.