Date Time IMF Executive Board Reviews IMF Debt Sustainability Framework for Market Access Countries Washington, DC: The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reviewed on January 14, 2021 the IMF Debt sustainability Framework for Market Access Countries (MAC DSA). The review revealed scope to improve the MAC DSA framework’s ability to identify risk of sovereign stress and better align it with the IMF’s lending framework, to be achieved by replacing the current approach with a new methodology. The MAC DSA plays a key role in the Fund’s core functions of surveillance and lending. In surveillance, the framework helps identify a member’s vulnerability to sovereign stress to steer the member away from such stress. In Fund-supported programs, which often take place after the stress has already developed, the DSA helps determine if sovereign stress can be resolved via a combination of IMF financing and economic reforms, or if measures such as debt restructuring are needed to deliver medium-term debt sustainability. The framework is also used in developing IMF conditionality and informing the need for debt relief in debt restructuring operations undertaken in the context of Fund-supported programs.