The Fund’s surveillance has a preemptive role in focusing on vulnerabilities and detecting the onset of crises in contrast to the Fund’s financing function which essentially plays a crisis mitigation role. The lessons of the crisis warrant a careful scrutiny of the manner in which the Fund conducts its surveillance, both multilateral and bilateral. 8.
For surveillance to be effective and for it to inspire trust and confidence, it is vital that it is even-handed, candid and unbiased. How do we operationalize this? A mandate that is derived only from an Executive Board decision obtained by a simple majority could be open to differing interpretations subsequently, thereby sacrificing clarity for expediency.