monetary policy, fiscal transparency, insurance and payments systems, securities, corporate governance, accounting, statistics, bank supervision etc. we are in the process of adopting some of these standards. ( iii ) a major innovation to the financial infrastructure which is now being put in place is a new mechanism for dealing with crisis countries that have acute external debt servicing problems. in the case of the mexican and asian crises, the fund and the world bank provided most of the resources and in so doing faced the criticism that they bailed out western banks. to avoid this and to preclude prolonged negotiations with creditors the international community embarked on an intense search for a sovereign debt resolution model - essentially a kind of bankruptcy court for countries. the idea is that countries in acute financial crisis can have an orderly debt workout so that they quickly start a process of recovery, not over - encumbered by debt. as to the other changes that have taken place. 1. the bretton woods institutions have become a more open transparent institution and now strongly encourage countries to implement greater transparency : now most of the their deliberations and internal reports about the workings of the institution are published. in turn, they now strongly encourage countries to publish the imf reports about themselves. as for the imf ( as the criticism was less so for the world bank ). 2. it has become a more humble institution because of its recent experience ; less dogmatic in terms of its policy dialogue ; less ideological in terms of its policy prescriptions and much more willing to listen to country suggestions. thus, for instance, while there is a preference for flexible exchange rates, it is more willing to accommodate other exchange rate regimes : while it still sees merit in capital account liberalization, it now emphasizes to countries the potential risks of such a move. i should also note that the imf certainly does not see exchange rate depreciation as the preferred instrument of demand adjustment as it was wont to do in the past. 3. the imf is now insisting on “ national ownership of adjustment programmes ”. this new focus on national ownership thus provides more room for the discussion of policy options and for programmes that take into consideration the social and political constraints. ( a way of dealing with the “ one size fits all ” phenomena. but there is another implication, it tells authorities that you could no longer justify unpopular measures by saying that they were imf impositions. 4. one major qualitative change is the recognition of the approach that “ growth

political impact ; and sometimes opting for less adjustment than the imbalance requires. the fact is that the success of the programme invariably depends on the strength of policies so national ownership cannot be an excuse for weak policies. the issue of ownership is also related to the reform of “ standard setting ” or best practices. i think there are obvious benefits to individual countries and to the global economy to have a set of standards or accepted rules of the game. the industrial countries, through the various international agencies, have taken the lead in setting these rules. developing countries have, however, expressed concerns that sometimes these standards and codes are too inflexible, that they do not allow for differences in institutional development, legislative frameworks and different levels of development. the developing countries feel that setting principles rather than rules may be more effective in ensuring compliance. finally, the issue of greater transparency in dealings between these institutions and governments is not always as simple as it sounds. many discussions with country officials are about confidential, sensitive issues. should the fund insist that in the interest of transparency then, even these confidential issues ( for example : about exchange rates, about privatization plans ) are included in fund reports and published? if it did, then governments may not be prepared to have open candid discussions on certain issues. in the continuing search to establish an international financial framework conducive to helping developing countries eliminate poverty, the international community, in early 2002 came up with a new paradigm which, in principle, could signal a new partnership in international co - operation between the multi - lateral agencies, the industrialized and developing countries. essentially, the agreement - called the monterrey consensus - says that if developing countries meet their responsibilities by adhering to principles of good governance, building sound institutions and pursuing sound policies, the international community ( defined as the multilateral agencies and the industrial countries ) should be prepared to provide comprehensive support. the agenda of comprehensive support set for the industrialized countries included the following : ( i ) addressing the trade issues of particular concern to developing countries such as : opening up of markets for imports of agricultural products and labour - intensive manufacturers, the need to give special and differential treatment to developing countries and to reduce subsidies to agriculture. this is clearly within the wto framework and would determine whether the doha round is successful. ( ii ) the agreement called for increasing the availability of imf resources, through an increase in fund quotas. and this is important for debtor developing countries since there tends to be a trade