Leadership SeatOffices · crises · institutions

Historical reconstructionMarch 2023 (reconstruction); officeholder brief current as of September 2026

You are Kristalina Georgieva · Managing Director, International Monetary Fund

An EFF Under Fire

Forks are the kinds of choices the office actually faced. The documented path is labelled in the rationale.

1

A programme the war will not pause for

Stakes · Whether the Managing Director tables a 48-month Extended Fund Facility for a member under invasion, or waits for a clearer war path.

It is March 2023. Russia’s full-scale invasion is in its second year.

Ukraine’s 2022 Rapid Financing Instrument (RFI) covered an urgent gap with little . Staff now propose a 48-month Extended Fund Facility () of Special Drawing Rights (SDR) 11.6 billion, about $15.6 billion — 577 percent of . First disbursement: about $2.7 billion.

The Fund does not finance wars. It finances balance-of-payments need under access rules, safeguards, and debt sustainability. The war strains all three.

You can table the large EFF. You can wait until the front is clearer. You can offer smaller access and push more onto Group of Seven (G7) grants.

Constraints of the office here

— The Board approves. You propose.
— Debt sustainability needs financing assurances from official creditors, not a staff hope.
— Ukraine already received Rapid Financing Instrument money in 2022. An EFF is a different contract.

Options · keys 1–3

Powers of this office

This office can

Propose arrangements (Stand-By, Extended Fund Facility, Rapid Financing Instrument) to the IMF Executive Board.
Shape conditionality, financing assurances, and the public narrative of a programme.
Use the Managing Director’s chair to convene the United States, Europe, and large emerging-market creditors.
Recommend allocations of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) — the Board and membership still decide.

This office cannot

Lend without Board approval, or exceed quota and access rules the membership has set.
Replace bilateral aid, World Bank projects, or a G7 grants package.
Force a country to implement conditions after disbursement if the government will not.
Ignore the United States’ blocking minority on major IMF decisions that require 85 percent of voting power.

Veto players

IMF Executive Board
Governments hold the votes. The Managing Director chairs; she does not outvote the United States or a European coalition.
United States Treasury
Largest single shareholder. Can stall a programme by withholding financing assurances or Board support.
Borrowing country’s government and parliament
Conditionality fails when the borrower will not own it.
Other official creditors (Paris Club, China, EU)
Debt sustainability assessments collapse if they will not restructure or assure financing.

What this case rests on

Treaties, votes, speeches, and dates a seminar can open.

Sources

1. IMF, Press Release 23/101, Executive Board approves Ukraine EFF (31 March 2023)
48-month EFF, SDR 11.6 billion / about $15.6 billion, part of a $115 billion support package; immediate disbursement about $2.7 billion.
2. IMF, Ukraine: Request for an Extended Arrangement under the EFF (Country Report 23/132)
Staff report: two-phase programme, two-scenario debt sustainability, financing assurances, wartime conditionality.
3. IMF, Ukraine country page
Institutional home for subsequent reviews and disbursements.
4. IMF, Rapid Financing Instrument for Ukraine (9 March 2022)
Prior emergency disbursement of about $1.4 billion (SDR 1,005.9 million) with limited conditionality; the 2023 EFF is the successor upper-credit-tranche programme.

Glossary

Aman
Israeli military intelligence directorate (Agaf HaModi'in).
Article 4
North Atlantic Treaty clause requiring consultation when an Ally’s security is threatened.
Article 5
NATO’s collective-defence clause: an armed attack on one Ally is an attack on all.
Article 6
North Atlantic Treaty clause that sets the geographic area for Articles 5 and 4.
Assembly of Experts
An elected clerical body that appoints and, in theory, supervises the Supreme Leader.
AUM
Assets under management — the market value of client money an asset manager invests.
CMC
Central Military Commission — the body that commands China’s armed forces.
College
The College of Commissioners — the Commission’s political cabinet of 27, one per member state.
conditionality
Policy actions a member agrees to implement, against which the Fund phases disbursements.
Consensus
NATO’s decision rule: a decision stands only if no Ally objects.
EFF
Extended Fund Facility — a medium-term IMF arrangement for members with longer-lived balance-of-payments problems.
ESG
Environmental, social, and governance — a contested label for non-financial factors in investing.

Dotted terms in the briefing open the full note. The shared glossary lists core IR and finance vocabulary.