IMF 2025 outlook: Critical junctures of uncertainty and risks

The IMF is the primary publisher of brainy perspectives on the economies of countries, regions, and the world. The latest series of IMF assessments of the global economy –namely The World Economic Outlook (WEO) and the Global Financial Stability Report(GFSR), both of April/May 2025 – open with the acknowledgment that “policyuncertainty” is testing “global resilience” (WEO). It notes that several fragilities, albeit already observed last year, “could amplify adverse shocks, abruptly tightening financial conditions” (GFSR). Customarily, the first WEO chapter, under the standard title of Global Prospects andPolicies, puts emphasis on basic advice to all 188 member countries. This year, the recommendations and their indented main target audiences are not very new, but in global context, stinging. This WEO advice of April 2025 can be subsumed under the message that there is “a rise in uncertainty that is once again testing the resilience of the global economy” and that, therefore,