IMF Monitor
The International Monetary Fund (IMF): Database Migration and Website Integration
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an international organisation that oversees global economic and financial policy, offers technical assistance, and provides financial support to member countries. Working alongside institutions such as the University of Cambridge, the Economic & Social Research Council, and the Institute for New Economic Thinking, the IMF Monitor project was created to present independent, accessible data on IMF activities, making complex economic information easier for researchers and civil society to interpret.
When the IMF Monitor team approached Geek, their existing website and database were becoming increasingly difficult to maintain. They wanted to migrate the site over to WordPress for easier content management while also consolidating their extensive database system onto a single, streamlined server.
This project was as much about data integrity as it was about web development. The IMF Monitor website housed a unique research tool, the Article IV Scanner, a database-driven system that allows users to search more than 2,000 IMF Article IV reports dating back to 2000.
However, the database powering this tool was written in PostgreSQL, while WordPress runs on MySQL. Although both use SQL (Structured Query Language), they differ significantly in how they handle data. PostgreSQL supports advanced functions within the database itself - logic that determines what to do with specific data - whereas MySQL stores only the raw data. This made a direct migration impossible.
Our development team began by investigating whether the PostgreSQL database could be restructured to fit within MySQL’s framework. It quickly became evident that converting the database would strip the Article IV Scanner of key functionality, compromising both its accuracy and usability.
Instead, we devised a hybrid solution. The WordPress website and the PostgreSQL database would remain distinct but connected, both running on the same service, ensuring faster communication and cleaner code.
The IMF’s existing database was extracted from its legacy environment, migrated securely to our new server infrastructure and then “chained” into the WordPress system. To achieve this, we converted the original database’s interaction scripts into a custom WordPress plugin, allowing the Article IV Scanner to run seamlessly within the site’s framework.
This approach combined the best of both worlds: the flexibility and usability of WordPress with the robustness and sophistication of PostgreSQL.
Technical Implementation
Languages and frameworks
PHP, JavaScript, SQL, and REST API integration
Database technologies
PostgreSQL for data management, MySQL for WordPress compatibility
Server Configuration
Reader in International Relations
Custom Development
A bespoke WordPress plugin to handle cross-database communication
We also implemented extensive data validation, ensuring that the Article IV Scanner could continue processing high volumes of search requests from researchers worldwide without performance degradation.
The result is a clean, stable and future-ready website that allows the IMF Monitor team to manage content through WordPress while continuing to rely on their complex research database without compromise.
The Article IV Scanner remains a powerful research tool, now operating within a faster, more secure environment, and the IMF Monitor site as a whole benefits from improved performance, maintainability and scalability.
Through bespoke web development, careful database migration and a deep understanding of both technologies, we created a system that bridges two distinct platforms without sacrificing function or form.
In short, we didn’t just make the IMF database work with WordPress. We made it work because of it.
