As financial ministers and central bank governors from around the world gathered in Washington this weekend for two days of discussions on how to revive the slumping global economy, an issue was brought up again -- the reform of the international financial and monetary architecture.

"The IMF (International Monetary Fund) is being given a bigger role in the crisis. But it has hardly reformed," a press release from the Third World Network (TWN) said on Saturday. The TWN is an independent non-profit international network of organizations and individuals involved in issues relating to development, Third World and North-South affairs.

The statement referred to the early April pledge by G20 leaders in London to boost support for the IMF, the World Bank and other international lending organizations by US$1.1 trillion to combat the global recession.

But the biggest chunk of that amount – US$500 billion for an emergency lending facility at the IMF -- is still short of the goal, reports said.

"There is thus the danger that its policies will do more harm to developing countries," the press release said.

Meanwhile, IMF officials said: "Developing countries need more flexibility to choose the macroeconomic policies that will best create jobs, reduce poverty, and meet health and education goals."

Leading experts identify need for IMF policy reform

Dr. Robert Pollin, professor of economics and co-director of the political economy research institute at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, said: "The overall impact of (the IMF's policy agenda) in developing countries is now clear -- it has led to slower economic growth, greater inequality, more speculative financial markets and severe bouts of financial instability."

"The priority now needs to be to supplant IMF-directed neoliberalism with policies focused on promoting economic growth, the expansion of decent employment and fighting poverty," he said.

Professor Georgia Saitoti, the Kenyan minister of state for provincial administration and internal security, said: "It is becoming more urgent now for additional resources to be mobilized in order to target critical sectors like education for effective mitigation of the HIV/AIDS epidemic."

"Unfortunately the strict macroeconomic policy encouraged by the IMF undermines the capacity of poor countries such as Kenya to fight the challenges and invest in health and education," said Saitoti, who was also former Kenyan minister of education. "The caps on overall national spending, enforced by the IMF policy, limit the hiring of additional teachers."

During the previous financial crises in the 1980s and 1990s, governments in developing countries were forced to cut spending on infrastructure projects and social programs, Robert Zoellick, the World Bank president, said on Friday.

The IMF board agreed to double the borrowing limits for 78 of the poorest countries in an effort to meet the needs of developing nations hit by the current economic downturn, the worst since the Great Depression.

"The developed world, including the Bretton Woods Institute, must remove the contradiction that exists between global targets for education for all and the restrictive policies," Saitoti said.

"There should be urgency, therefore, to relax the conditionalities and allocate more resources to the developing countries in order to enable them to effectively meet health and education needs," he said. "Africa has a lot of potential for contributing to the international development. Let us examine existing policies that limit its capacity to thrive."