The IMF’s policy advice needs a louder voice

The International Monetary Fund’s 2026 Comprehensive Surveillance Review (CSR) arrives at a critical moment. A major energy crisis is unfolding, global imbalances are widening, trade fragmentation is accelerating, and fiscal trajectories in systemically important economies have moved from uncomfortable to alarming.

The review offers the Fund a concrete opportunity to demonstrate that its economic surveillance can deliver the timely and specific policy guidance that these risks demand.

Ahead of the IMF’s annual meetings in Bangkok in October 2026, the question is not whether the Fund has the right tools. It does. The question is whether it will use the coming months to translate its staff’s excellent analysis into concrete messages enhancing its traction with major shareholders and the broader public.

Analysis is important, traction is key

The IMF’s surveillance role is grounded in its founding document, the Articles of Agreement, and was significantly strengthened by the 2012 Integrated Surveillance Decision (ISD), which requires annual consultations with members to systematically identify and assess spillovers from their domestic policies.

Under this framework, if a major economy runs procyclical fiscal policies, suppresses its exchange rate, or deploys industrial subsidies as a substitute for macroeconomic tools, the IMF is legally entitled—and obligated—to say so, tracing cross-border spillovers rather than merely noting domestic effects. Yet the trend toward rising fragmentation suggests that even well-founded IMF advice has not been sufficiently heeded by its larger members.

It is therefore no wonder that, fourteen years after the ISD, the ongoing surveillance review still lists “traction”—defined as constructive policy dialogue, influence on policymaking, and effective communication—as one of its three core objectives, alongside analytical quality and value added to members. IMF management and member countries would be well advised to move beyond diagnosis and take concrete steps to address this gap, including through operational changes ahead of the Bangkok meetings.

Strong analysis, uneven delivery

A major reason to implement such changes quickly and decisively is that, although the IMF continues to produce strong analysis and candid bilateral surveillance, that work rarely gets the recognition it deserves.

In its report on the 2026 Article IV consultation with China, for instance, staff estimated that China’s real effective exchange rate was potentially undervalued by 12 to 21 percent, explicitly flagged “unwarranted industrial policy” as a source of external imbalances, and called for consumption-led rebalancing as an “overarching priority.” And the report on the Article IV consultation with the United States concluded that tariffs “represent a negative supply shock to the U.S. economy,” projected that consolidated government debt would reach 140 percent of GDP by 2031, and described the country’s fiscal trajectory as “a growing global stability risk.”

Still, none of these country-specific findings made their way into the managing director’s curtain-raiser speech at the 2026 spring meetings, the World Economic Outlook (WEO), or the IMFC communiqué. Granted, these documents focus on the world economy, and much of their value lies in presenting the Fund’s updated outlook for global growth. Yet the IMF missed a rare moment in the public spotlight to connect—as mandated by the ISD—its analysis of spillovers and policy recommendations for major countries to the broader policy guidance derived from its global analysis.

Between rigor and restraint

This has been a recurring issue, connected to two structural obstacles that continue to blunt the impact of IMF surveillance. Both fall squarely within the scope of the CSR.

The first is the internal clearance process. Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) assessments—in 2011 and again in a 2014 synthesis of recurring issues—have documented a tendency for staff to moderate their reviews of larger economies, with career incentives favoring conformity over candor, and analysis gravitating toward middle-of-the-road conclusions.

The second is the missing link between bilateral Article IV conclusions and the IMF’s flagship products, namely the WEO, the Global Financial Stability Report, and the Fiscal Monitor. The Fund’s comparative advantage is precisely its ability to connect bilateral findings to a global diagnosis, including policy spillovers from its larger members that have global repercussions. In that sense, the CSR presents an opportunity to close a sizeable gap between multilateral and bilateral surveillance.

Turning insight into influence

Three specific changes, each within the scope of the IMF’s mandate, could materially enhance surveillance traction—and be implemented before Bangkok. 

1. The ISD should be operationalized with a clear protocol. Article IV reports on systemically important economies should include a dedicated section on cross-border implications with quantified spillover estimates where possible. More importantly, the findings of those sections should be explicitly referenced in the WEO, the Global Financial Stability Report, and official public communications. The material already exists—as the China and US reports demonstrate. What is needed is a standing requirement that it be used.
2. The internal review and clearance process for Article IV reports should be protected from dilution. The 2026 CSR should establish a mechanism—such as regular surveys conducted by the IMF’s Risk Office—to assess whether staff believe that their messages make it through the review process to the Executive Board and the public without substantive weakening. Transparency of this kind would strengthen not only the Fund’s analytical output but also its credibility.
3. IMF management should be expected to use more country-specific references in its public communications. For example, the board’s own conclusions from the 2026 US and China consultations—that the US should “work constructively with trading partners to address their concerns over the fairness of the global trading system” and that China should “scale back unwarranted industrial policy to mitigate international spillovers”—are the kind of messages that policymakers, the broader public, and market participants need to hear.

Bangkok as a proving ground

The IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings, scheduled to take place in Bangkok from October 12 to 18, provide a concrete and proximate test of whether the CSR’s ambitions are translated into operational change. If the review produces the right commitments, the fall meetings could look materially different from the spring gathering: flagship publications and management communications would carry explicit references to bilateral findings, connecting country-specific conclusions to the global outlook. That would not just be a minor procedural tweak—it would be clear, verifiable proof that the Fund has moved from consultation to practice.

Martin Mühleisen is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center and a former International Monetary Fund (IMF) official with decades-long experience in economic crisis management and financial diplomacy.

Image: People walk past the entrance to the International Monetary Fund headquarters in Washington, DC. Source: iStock.