|
Press Release IMF Selects
Ghana as Site for Regional Technical Assistance Center in Africa
Press Release No. 09/398
November 11, 2009
The International Monetary Fund’s African Department has
selected Ghana as the site of its second Regional Technical
Assistance Center in West Africa (AFRITAC West 2). The site
selection was officially announced by African Department
Director Antoinette Sayeh during a recent visit to Accra.
Since 1993, the IMF has established a total of seven regional
technical assistance centers that are located in Africa
(Tanzania, Mali, and Gabon), the Pacific (Fiji), the Caribbean
(Barbados), the Middle East (Lebanon), and Central America
(Guatemala). The IMF intends to establish two more centers in
Africa before the end of 2010 (see Factsheet – The IMF Regional
Technical Assistance and Training Centers). The centers are part
of the IMF’s regional approach to capacity building that allows
for better tailoring of assistance to the particular needs of a
region, closer coordination with other assistance providers and
donor partners, and enhances the IMF’s ability to respond
quickly to emerging needs.
AFRITAC West 2 will serve six countries (Cape Verde, The Gambia,
Ghana, Nigeria, Liberia, and Sierra Leone). These countries
despite their differences, face broadly similar macroeconomic
policy challenges and capacity building needs. Commodities,
minerals and agriculture, feature prominently in the aggregate
output, exports and fiscal revenues of most of them making
sustainable management of resources a key priority. In all of
these countries, at least a quarter of the population live below
the poverty line and almost all of them rank in the lowest
quartile of the United Nations’ Human Development Index
indicating strong need for an enabling environment. Their
various poverty reduction strategy papers acknowledge this need,
as well.
Technical assistance by AFRITAC West 2 could focus on tax and
customs policy and administration, public financial management,
financial sector regulation and supervision, public debt
markets, and macroeconomic statistics. This broad strategy will,
however, take into account country-specific needs. While some of
the prospective members are frontier low-income countries who,
with their basic institutions in place, are looking to enter the
emerging market world, the remainder are being constrained by
debilitating past conflicts and are experiencing critical needs
on a broad front. For the first group, AFRITAC West 2 will serve
as a conduit for knowledge of best international practices, and
this group, in turn, will serve as a point of reference for the
second group.
The establishment of AFRITAC West 2 would extend a highly
successful model of providing regional technical assistance to a
group of countries that are not currently covered by the
existing three AFRITACs: (i) a Steering Committee—composed of
representatives of beneficiary countries, donors, and the IMF—will
provide strategic guidance to the center; (ii) a center
coordinator—a Fund staff member—will be responsible for the
day-to-day management; and (iii) the center’s staff will be
comprised of resident advisors, short-term experts recruited and
backstopped by IMF departments responsible for technical
assistance, and administrative support. AFRITAC West 2’s work
plans would be integrated with country reform agendas and the
IMF’s overall technical assistance strategy for the region. |
