The International Monetary Fund (IMF) was established in 1944. From there on, the IMF has been dealing with ensuring the stability of the international monetary system, according to its Articles of Agreement [1].

Until the 1970s, the main objective was maintaining the international gold standard. Currently the IMF priorities are sustainable and stable global economic growth and prevention of financial crises.

The IMF is important international institution of economic policy cooperation involving most of the countries in the world (more precisely, 189 countries). Estonia has been a member country since 1992.

The Board of Governors is the highest decision-making body of the IMF and the Executive Board [2] is responsible for conducting the day-to-day business of the IMF.

IMF activities

The main fields of activity of the IMF are economic policy surveillance, financial assistance, and technical assistance.

• The IMF surveillance [3] activity aims at encouraging its members to implement such economic policy and institutional reforms, which would promote a sustainable and balanced development of the global economy.
• Financial assistance [4] of the IMF is used to help the member countries with their temporary balance of payments problems in order to prevent a liquidity crisis and its possible negative impact on the economic growth and other countries.
• Technical assistance [5]  is offered by the IMF to help state authorities of the member countries strengthen their capacity to design and implement effective policies.