Proposed New Grouping in WEO Country Classifications

This note develops a definition of a new category of countries (Low Income Developing Countries (acronym: LIDCs)) that can be deployed to (a) facilitate enhanced coverage of low income country issues in the Fund’s flagship products and (b) serve as a standardized definition of the “low income country” universe in staff analytical work.1 While use of the proposed definition in analytical work would be encouraged, it would not be required.