2026 Comprehensive Surveillance Review: Public Consultation with Civil Society Organizations (CSOs)

Public Consultation with Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) from July 25 - September 15, 2025

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The IMF is currently conducting a periodic review of its surveillance - the 2026 Comprehensive Surveillance Review (CSR) - to strengthen the IMF's ability to support member countries and global economic stability. As part of this review, the IMF is consulting with its members and other stakeholders, including non-media and non-governmental organizations, such as Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), to canvas their views on the direction of IMF surveillance over the next 5-10 years.

The 2026 CSR report presenting staff's findings and recommendations will be submitted to the IMF's Executive Board for consideration and approval next year. The views of all stakeholders, including CSOs who participate in this consultation process, will help inform the report.

About the 2026 CSR: Objectives and scope

IMF surveillance refers to the monitoring of and provision of advice on the economic and financial policies of member countries, alongside the oversight of the International Monetary System (IMS) to ensure its effective operation.[1] Surveillance is an essential and integral part of the IMF's mandate and is established in the IMF's articles of agreement and modernized in the 2012 Integrated Surveillance Decision (2012 ISD). You can find more information on the IMF surveillance here.

The 2026 CSR will aim to support and enhance IMF surveillance by assessing its performance since the last CSR in 2021, identifying the key gaps and challenges, setting the forward-looking priorities to guide surveillance over the next 5-10 years, and developing the prioritization framework for the Fund's engagement in new policy areas.[2] It will also include proposals to sharpen the focus of Article IV staff reports, including by streamlining some of the requirements.

The policy areas where the Fund is expected to deliver the highest value added are closely linked to its mandate and expertise. The past surveillance reviews focused on ways to improve the Fund's capacity to deliver robust analysis and advice on vulnerabilities and risks to domestic and external stability, cross-border spillovers, and macro-financial surveillance. Recognizing the need to respond to evolving global challenges, successive reviews have broadened the scope of IMF surveillance to include other policy areas relevant to domestic and external stability guided by the macrocriticality criterion.[3]

About the public consultation

As part of the 2026 CSR, a three-phase consultation with non-media and non-governmental stakeholders will take place during June 2025 and mid 2026.

Phase 1. Awareness Raising Meeting. A virtual session to introduce the review and consultation process (June 26 and July 9, 2025). You can find the presentation here.

Phase 2. Online survey July 25 - September 15, 2025. A structured survey, available in English, Arabic[4] , French, Spanish, and Russian to collect written inputs from participants.

Phase 3. Follow-up discussion(s). Virtual/hybrid meeting(s) with those who participated in phase 2 of the consultation (online survey) to share findings, dig deeper on the feedback received, and provide updates on the whole review process. 

Phase 2 of the public consultation is now open. You will find here and below the link to the survey. Once the survey is closed, all those who fill it in, will receive an invitation to participate in Phase 3 of the consultation (Follow up meetings).

Please note this survey will take approximately 20 minutes to fill in. If you would like to work on your answers before submitting the form, you can download the survey questions here: PDF version | Word version. However, please kindly note that all responses to the survey must be submitted electronically, without exception, through the online form by September 15.

Stakeholders from all over the world covered by the 2015 Guidelines on the IMF Staff Engagement with Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) are invited to participate in the consultation process. This includes:  

• Non- governmental organizations (NGOs) and CSOs

• Business forums 

• Faith based organizations 

• Youth organizations 

• Labor unions and professional organizations 

• Local community groups 

• Philanthropic and charitable organizations, 

• Gender and women's associations 

• Local organizations of persons with disabilities 

• Social movements (including representatives of the informal sector and rural areas) 

• Academics 

• Research centers  

• Think tanks 

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[1] The legal basis for IMF surveillance is laid out in Article IV (A-IV) of the Articles of Agreement, and further elaborated in the 2012 ISD. The ISD (¶9) states that "The international monetary system (IMS) comprises: (a) the rules governing exchange arrangements between countries and the rates at which foreign exchange is purchased and sold; (b) the rules governing the making of payments and transfers for current international transactions between countries; (c) the rules governing the regulation of international capital movements; and (d) the arrangements under which international reserves are held, including official arrangements through which countries have access to liquidity through purchases from the Fund or under official currency swap arrangements."

[2] As outlined in the MIP in response to the IEO report on "The Evolving Application of the IMF's Mandate" (June 2024).The prioritization framework , in principle, can be applied to all policy areas other than those that are always subject of the Fund's bilateral surveillance per 2012 ISD, such as exchange rate, monetary, fiscal, and financial sector policies (both their macroeconomic aspects and macroeconomically relevant structural aspects). The CSR will specifically focus on the new areas for which strategies have been approved by the Executive Board after the 2021 CSR, namely climate change, digital money, and gender.

[3] A policy is macrocritical if it significantly influences present or prospective balance of payments or domestic stability (see 2022 Surveillance Guidance Note, Box 2)

[4] To access the Arabic translation of the survey, please send an email to [email protected] with the subject line: "Public Consultation CSR - Arabic translation of the survey". The team will then send it to you directly.