The International Monetary Fund’s legitimacy and status must be strengthened now so that it can be an effective manager when the next global crisis breaks out, urges a new Council Special Report. “Economic and financial conditions can change with alarming speed, and crises are bound to recur,” warns report author and Council Senior Fellow Peter Kenen, a renowned economist. “It would be far harder to reform the Fund in the midst of a new crisis than to do so now. It is easier to modernize a fire brigade when there are few fires than in the midst of a major conflagration.”