Date published: July 23, 2025.
The IMF, functioning as the global “lender of last resort,” utilizes a quota system to determine member countries’ financial contributions to the IMF, voting power, level of IMF access to IMF resources and SDR allocations. Despite periodic reviews, the current quota formula perpetuates imbalances, favouring high-income countries, which limits the voice and emergency support access for low- and middle-income countries, especially in Africa.
Currently, the US with 17% of the total quotas remains the largest IMF shareholder among the G20, continuing to grant it effective veto power in any discussions involving changes to the quota formula and power distribution within the IMF. G20 member-states, excluding South Africa, the European Union (EU), and African Union (AU), collectively possess 71% of total IMF quotas.
Meanwhile, AU member-states collectively possess 5.2% of the total quotas, which is equivalent to just 29.7% of the quota share of the US. Within these African member-states, South Africa holds the largest share (0.64%), followed by Nigeria (0.52%), Egypt (0.43%), and Algeria (0.41%). That means that 39 African countries each represent less than 0.1% of overall IMF quotas. Evidently, there is an urgent need to reform the Quota system to ensure the African continent is properly represented, especially as African countries interface with the IMF more frequently than the richer member countries.
But what kind of quota reform might be better for Africa? We have several ideas.
Recommendation 1: Redistribute Quotas to increase Africa’s overall share.
A general quota increase for all countries does not increase the quota share of African countries. For instance, with a straightforward 50% increase in IMF quotas, African countries would gain extra quotas worth 18.5 billion SDRs, with no change to its power in the institution. Rather, it is redistribution of quotas that can increase Africa’s overall quota share. However, if African quotas are doubled (i.e., from 5% to 10%) and quotas of non-African countries redistributed under different scenarios as discussed in this infographic to compensate for this, Africa gets extra quotas worth 36.9 billion SDRs and increases its relative voice and decision-making power in the IMF.
A similar result – i.e., an increase in Africa’s quota shares as well as an increase in its voice and decision-making power – would obtain in the scenario where there is a 50% overall quota increase accompanied by a doubling of Africa’s quota share. Hence, with the African Union’s recent permanent membership in the G20, coupled with South Africa’s current G20 Presidency, Africa has an opportunity to present this critical issue for other G20 members in view of the forthcoming negotiations.
Recommendation 1a: Redistribute Quotas evenly across non-African countries.
Quotas could be evenly redistributed across non-African countries. This would result in a reduction of 273.1 million SDRs for each non-African country. Among the G20 countries, this redistribution leads to their quotas collectively decreasing by 1.52%, amounting to a total reduction of SDR 4.95 billion. However, this would also lead some countries to have negative SDRs (especially small non-African countries such as island nations), rendering this option infeasible.
Recommendation 1b: Equally redistribute Quotas of only G20 members.
To increase Africa’s overall share, quotas of only G20 member countries, excluding AU member-states, could be equally redistributed to African countries. Consequently, the quotas for G20 countries would decrease by 11.5%, with each country’s quota diminishing by SDR 2.04 billion.
Recommendation 1c: Redistribute Quotas of only G20 members proportionately to increase Africa’s overall share.
Quotas of G20 members only could be redistributed, but this time in accordance with their existing quota proportions, i.e., more over-represented countries reallocate more quota shares.
For example, starting with the US, which has the largest quota share, this would lead to a decrease from 17.4% to 16.5%; Japan’s share decreases from 6.5% to 6.1%, and China’s from 6.4% to 6.05%. This pattern persists across the board, with relatively smaller economies such as Argentina, Indonesia, and Turkey also seeing a decrease, but to a lesser extent.
Within these different scenarios, it would be possible to accommodate any concerns of other low- and middle-income countries about their own voice and power in the IMF, and the G20 itself can make decisions amongst themselves on how to manage redistribution. In our view, recommendation 1C is the most viable and easiest for G20 members to facilitate and bring to life.
Going forward, it is imperative that policymakers and CSOs both across the continent and elsewhere continue to advocate for the urgent “reimagining” of the Quota system to work for African interests.
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Special thanks go to Trevor Lwere and Jade Scarfe for their work on the graphics and for collecting/analysing the underlying data and this accompanying article.
The data used was collected primarily from the IMF’s Financial Data.
If you spot any gaps or have any enquiries, please send your feedback to us at media@developmentreimagined.com, and we will aim to respond ASAP.
