IMF: Secrecy encouraging bias

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

                          April 9, 1999

Internal IMF Report Says Secrecy
Hurts Efforts to Combat Agency Bias

By GLENN R. SIMPSON 
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

WASHINGTON -- The "rule of secrecy" within the International Monetary
Fund has undermined attempts to combat discrimination within the multilateral
lender, according to an internal report.

Staff members complained that the IMF's personnel decision making is part of
"a lack of transparency permeating the Fund," the report said. "Staff members
have concerns that the lack of transparency permits decisions to be made
inconsistently and favoritism to continue along race, nationality and
gender lines,"
the report said.

The report, which summarizes an unprecedented discrimination review begun in
1996 and completed last year, found relatively modest problems overall. When
the IMF's roughly 2,700 employees were invited to confidentially submit
discrimination complaints for the review, about 2.7% responded.

But the reviewers, including four outside consultants, also reported
disturbing
complaints. Some staff members alleged that IMF managers have created a
"hostile working environment" where discrimination can be remarkably crude.
For example, some staff members complained that they were subjected to racist
or sexist comments, the report said. Some of the offensive remarks were
allegedly made by managers, who as a group tend to be white males of
European descent, the report said.

Thomas Goltz, a senior IMF administrator, said in an interview that the
allegations of racist comments are a decade or more old and don't reflect the
current environment at the fund.

The report, written by a group of IMF employees and consultants, doesn't say
when the comments were allegedly made, but it calls discrimination a
significant
current problem. Michael Lewis, one of the outside consultants, said some
allegations are old while others aren't. "I think there has been enormous
progress," he said. "At the same time, I think it's accurate to say the
outside
review team still thinks there are problems."

About half of all discrimination complaints were found to be merited, and the
IMF has taken corrective action in those cases, Mr. Goltz said. But he
acknowledged that some alleged victims feel they still haven't been adequately
compensated for wrongs that took place years ago.

Mr. Goltz added that the fund has become much more strict toward insensitive
remarks. "I think we would fire a supervisor on the spot for making similar
kinds
of remarks," he said.

The IMF has also made great progress on issues of openness within the
institution, Mr. Goltz added, and he asserted that it is now relatively
upfront with
its staff about personnel decisions and grievance procedures. Overall, he
said, a
series of reforms have left the IMF with "quite effective" grievance
procedures.

Like its sister institution, the World Bank, the IMF, which makes emergency
loans to countries in economic crisis, is in the midst of a long and often
painful
process of internal reform. As both institutions have become more
aggressive in
preaching openness and other integrity-related reforms to their borrowers,
they
have felt pressure to embrace similar standards for their own operations.

A summary of the report's findings is now being distributed to IMF employees.

The report also found that one cause of discrimination at the fund is the
dominance in management of "industrial country males" who tend to be most
sympathetic to people like them. Another problem is the demanding work
conditions, which often prompt managers to give important assignments to
native English speakers who can write quickly.

A quarter of all complaints came from people with African backgrounds, who,
among other things, said they are encouraged to limit themselves to
Africa-related issues. In general, employees from developing countries
complained that the fund operated to the advantage of the employees from
industrialized countries, its major shareholders. Gender discrimination was
also a
common complaint.

Other problems stem from cultural differences in the IMF's polyglot
120-nationality work force, the report said. In one case, "a staff member
failed
to challenge his supervisor because he was raised to believe that
authorities had
the last word and should not be challenged."


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