THE International Monetary Fund has come under a withering attack from its own internal self-policing watchdog, which demanded far-reaching reforms to improve its effectiveness and accountability to member countries. The IMF was accused of failing to adapt to changing global realities, and of being widely perceived as both slow to respond to emerging world issues, and as ineffective in agreeing and delivering strategies to tackle these problems.

The charges were levelled in a report from the IMF's Independent Evaluation Office, the IEO, which called for action to bolster the legitimacy of the fund's top governing bodies and tougher international oversight of its day-to-day management, led by its managing director.

The report said that an overhaul of the fund's operations and governance also needed to go still further than a recent spate of reforms of its 185 member countries' voting rights, which gave some increasingly important emerging market countries a bigger say in decision making, reducing the traditional dominance of the United States and Europe.

"Our evaluation finds that reforms have not kept pace with broader changes in the environment in which the fund operates," Tom Bernes, the head of the IEO, said. "In our view, if left unaddressed this could likely undermine effectiveness over time."