As the world struggles to emerge from the worst economic crisis since World War II, it is an appropriate time to ask whether the IFIs are performing optimally and doing the jobs they should be doing. Does the world really need the IMF, World Bank, African Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and Inter-American Development Bank today? Can they be changed to better address our needs? How should we re-design them? What could the international financial institutions have done to keep the crisis from occurring in the first place? What can they do now to best mitigate the fallout from the crisis? Do they achieve their various missions of promoting stability, fighting poverty, encouraging growth, and promoting democracy?

This report presents the findings of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee's seven-year investigation of international financial institutions (IFIs), exploring how IFIs could better serve US foreign policy interests and more effectively achieve development goals.