§ Mr. McNamaraTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if the Interim Committee of the International Monetary Fund has considered the report from the External Evaluation of the IMF' s Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility; and which of the report's findings Her Majesty's Government supports. [72194]
§ Ms HewittThe UK strongly welcomed the report from the External Evaluation on the IMF's Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility (ESAF) when it was presented to the IMF Executive Board last year. In particular, we welcomed the report's findings on the need to implement a new approach to address the social impact of ESAF programmes, on the need for better and more effective collaboration between the IMF and World Bank, and on the importance of ownership to the success of programmes. We encouraged the publication of the external report to promote further public discussion of its findings.
We have been working at the IMF to ensure that the findings of the external report are used to strengthen ESAF programmes. We welcomed the IMF's paper on "Distilling the Lessons from the ESAF reviews", supported its decision to implement a new approach to ESAF on a pilot basis, and have encouraged the Fund to go further and incorporate the lessons of the review in all ESAF programmes. We will continue to work to ensure that the lessons of the review are fully addressed.