International Financial Institutions (IFIs) are mainly divided into two groups. On one hand, there is the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which was formed at the Bretton Woods Conference way back in 1944 as the international supervisor of a system of fixed currency exchange rates, a system whose overall aim was to facilitate increase of international trade by resisting competitive currency devaluations among countries. That fixed currency rate system then broke down in the 1970s, and since that time the IMF has been most evident as a financing institution for countries facing heavy external debts and facing financial or/and economic crises.

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