By shaping the global rules of public finance, the IMF has a direct impact on economic distribution in countries across the world, and in turn, on gender inequality. This study investigates the impact of the IMF's bureaucratic politics on gender equality, focusing on Latin America.

Firstly, it suggests the IMF frames gender equality as a pure macroeconomic issue, moving away from the legal perspective of human rights. This choice leads to the 'apoliticisation' or 'domestication' of the question of gender equality. This is reflective of competing bureaucratic rationalities within the IMF: some of the Fund's departments seem more geared towards gradual changes in the IMF's global responsibilities, when others, notably the legal department, would be more conservative. Secondly, the interface with Ministries of Finance as the key national counterparts to the IMF further enhances the focus on macroeconomic policies as a means of achieving gender equality, rather than a human rights perspective.

This event is co-hosted with the Global Economic Governance programme and forms part of the Political Economy of Finance series, generously supported by the Institute for New Economic Thinking.

Alexandra Zeitz, a DPhil candidate at Oxford's Department of Politics and International Relations, will moderate.

About the speaker

Camila Villard Duran is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of São Paulo (USP) and an Associate Global Leaders Fellow at the Global Economic Governance Programme. The purpose of her research is to develop an interdisciplinary critical reflection on the IMF’s institutional design, aiming to contribute with policy proposals to enhance the Fund’s legitimacy and accountability, particularly towards emerging and developing countries.

Camila completed her PhD in Law at USP and the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (double degree). She developed an applied and comparative research on central bank accountability. She is the author of the books The legal framework for the monetary policy: a case study and Law and money: the Brazilian Supreme Court and the judicial review of monetary stabilization policies (in Portuguese).