IMF Completes Course on Monetary and Exchange Rate Policy for East African Policymakers

The Institute for Capacity Development (ICD) of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) completed today a course on Monetary and Exchange Rate Policy in collaboration with the East African Regional Training Center (East-AFRITAC). The course, which took place from June 27 to July 10 in Kigali, Rwanda, brought together 34 mid-to-senior level officers from central banks and ministries of finance in eight member countries of East-AFRITAC.

The objective of the course was to broaden participants' understanding of monetary and exchange rate policy, drawing from experiences from emerging market economies in sub-Saharan Africa and around the world. It followed up on a recent seminar on modernizing monetary policy frameworks organized by the IMF's African Department for governors of central banks in the region. Technical discussions will also feed into an international conference on monetary policy frameworks being organized by the National Bank of Rwanda on July 19-20. The IMF will actively participate in this conference.

Over the past decade, macroeconomic management has improved in Africa. With fiscal policy at more sustainable paths, central banks across the region are beginning to enhance their monetary policy strategies by building a stronger analytical and institutional capacity.

This course exemplified the IMF's new strategy aiming at better coordinating technical assistance and training and to enhance capacity development in response to the shifting needs and priorities of member countries. The IMF has recently restructured its training operations in a new department, the Institute for Capacity Development, with a mandate to establish a capacity development strategy for the IMF and create stronger synergies between training and technical assistance.

For more information please contact:

East-AFRITAC: Xavier Maret (XMaret@imf.org)

IMF's ICD: Marc Quintyn (MQuintyn@imf.org)

IMF's Resident Representative to Rwanda: Dmitri Gershenson (DGershenson@imf.org)