Statement by the Managing Director on Strategic Directions in the Medium-Term Budget

The long view. I try never to forget that the Fund was founded at the close of the Second World War to avoid the human devastation that too often follows economic disasters. The specifics may change from one era to the next—reversals in capital flows, not war reparations; financial collapses from asset market bubbles, not hyperinflations—but the dynamic of economic shock transmitted to political and social convulsion has not changed. As we look ahead ten or twenty years beyond today’s budgetary and staffing preoccupations, we must not lose sight of the raison d’etre of the Fund: to deliver the economic analysis and multilateral collaboration that ensures financial stability and prosperity for all—and thereby avoid the tragedies that ensue when these are absent.