The annual report is prepared by the IMF’s Diversity Office in consultation with the Diversity Council. The Diversity Council is a body that provides guidance to management, department heads, and departmental Diversity Reference Groups on diversity-related matters. 

The Executive Board made the following observations regarding the report:

1.  Acknowledged that important steps have been taken in the Fund to improve diversity and inclusion, but noted that progress has been uneven and in some instances slow and more needs to be done to achieve a more balanced representation of the staff reflecting the Fund’s broad membership.

2.  Welcomed improvement in the representation of women in managerial grades and in the share of staff from some underrepresented regions.

3.  Disappointed, however, that eight of the eleven quantitative benchmarks have not been met by the target date of 2014. 

4.  Many believed the new 2020 benchmarks proposed by the Diversity Working Group were not sufficiently ambitious to raise staff representation, especially at managerial levels. Directors agreed that particular attention should be given to the areas where progress has been slow and, in this regard, adding recruitment benchmarks for Africa and the Middle East is a step in the right direction.

5. Stressed the need to consider intraregional diversity as many member countries are underrepresented. 

6. Other aspects of diversity are also important, particularly education and Directors welcomed the steady increase of Economist Program appointments with advanced academic degrees from universities outside the United States and the United Kingdom, but noted that the educational profile of Fund staff as a whole has not changed markedly in the past few years.

7. Some Directors felt that other dimensions of diversity, including language skills relevant for the Fund’s work, cultural backgrounds, and a consistent use of flexible work arrangements and incentives to help young families, should also be considered.

8. Directors agreed that the Fund’s diversity and inclusion efforts should be fully integrated into HR policies and practices and that the Diversity Scorecard and the accountability framework for senior managers, Department Heads in particular, should help achieve the diversity and inclusion objectives.

The full report can be found here 2014 Diversity and Inclusion Annual Report.