IMF conditionality and structural reforms: Evidence from developing countries

This paper examines Egypt’s 2022-2026 loan agreement with the IMF in order to establish, whether it (the agreement) is legally and democratically valid under international institutional law and under Egyptian Constitutional Law. The issue then is if any compatible limits placed on state sovereignty and local constitutional protections had been really maintained with respect to the Fund’s authority to interpret and enforce structural adjustment conditionality. Based upon the institutional grounding of IMF conditionality with Article 151 and Article 127 of Egypt’s Constitution, this article shows that compliance with IMF agreements is not merely procedural (international), but rather it entails active engagement in national constitutional supervision. The paper focuses on the controversial IMF conditionalities, highlighting its nature and extent as well as the structural adjustment it enforces and its legitimacy in sovereign countries. It also highlights the tension between state acceptance and structural coercion of IMF loans, suggesting that legitimacy is a result of democratic accountability in the recipient country. Despite this, as the Egyptian example (like many others that have been through IMF programs) suggests, there is a broader problem that global financial governance, and particularly conditionality, is hard to square with domestic constitutional guarantees and sovereign rights.

Government Ownership of IMF Conditionality Programs: Conceptualization, Measurement, and Validation