Regarding the International Monetary Fund, which one of the following statements is correct?

The correct answer is C. The IMF lends only to its member countries. Membership is the gateway: a country must first join by subscribing a quota, and only then can it draw on the Fund's resources, mainly to tackle balance-of-payments problems.

• A is wrong. Being a global body does not make the IMF a lender to everyone. A non-member cannot borrow from it.
• B is wrong. There is no developed-country restriction. Most of the IMF's lending has in fact gone to developing and emerging economies. Eligibility turns on membership and need, not on income category.
• D is wrong because C is correct.

The core concept is the difference between the Fund's lending role and its surveillance role. Loans come with conditionality, which is the policy reform package a borrower must accept. This is the root of the Mains debate on sovereignty versus structural adjustment, and of the reform of quotas and voting shares that has been discussed in recent years.

Trap: aspirants read the IMF as a universal lender because it is global, or they confuse it with the World Bank's development lending. Remember that membership is the gate for both institutions.