"Exceptional times call for an exceptional response," IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said in a statement. "The Fund is responding quickly and flexibly to requests for financing. We are offering some countries substantial resources, with conditions based only on measures absolutely necessary to get past the crisis and to restore a viable external position."

Only nations in good standing with the IMF will be eligible for the program. Currently, the IMF has about $210 billion available for loans, with the typical loan term being 3 to 5 years.

Economist Richard Felson said the IMF's SLF is needed "given the nature of the problem regional economies face.

"For a short time, we thought that emerging markets would be immune to the financial crisis. How wrong we were, and the crisis also has demonstrated that some emerging markets, despite previous robust GDP growth rates, might actually be more vulnerable to the crisis than either Europe or America," Felson said. "Economist Johnson's $1 trillion capital estimate for emerging markets may prove to be accurate. The crisis has revealed that many of these economies are too dependent on exports sales, with home-country middle classes too small to make up for the expected slow down in international trade. The IMF's SLF will ease short-term liquidity problems."

Longer-term, Felson said both overall and special-purpose funding will have to increase to accommodate the larger role the IMF is expected to play in the new global financial system, after the financial crisis has ended. That will require significant increases in IMF contributions from emerging market powers, China, India, Russia, and Brazil, and several Middle East nations, he said.

Monetary Policy/Economic Analysis: Hungary, Ukraine, Belarus, Iceland, and Pakistan have already accessed short-term IMF loans, and more are likely to follow -- which only underscores the need for a deeper-funded IMF in the new global financial system.