On December 12, 2024, the IMF’s Internal Evaluation Office (IEO) released its evaluation of the IMF’s exceptional access policy. Over the years, the IEO has delivered a number of well-informed and – on occasion – sharply critical evaluations of the IMF’s activities, accompanied by recommendations that have had a meaningful impact on the IMF’s reform agenda. Given the central role that the exceptional access policy plays in the IMF’s lending activities, this evaluation is a particularly important one. […]