In addition, regional institutions such as the East African Community have developed macroeconomic targets to promote eventual monetary union, which their members are committed to complying with. In terms of supporting sound macroeconomic management, the convergence criteria of the EAC – which include targets for international reserves and fiscal deficits – are not inferior to the targets in IMF programs.
Hence, it is not clear why we still need IMF programs as agents of constraint for macroeconomic policy. As for the budget support donors, whether they would really cut their aid if IMF programs were no longer implemented in SSA is debatable. In any case, donor aid is becoming less important as a source of budget funding for the frontier markets.