High-Level Summary Technical Assistance Reports
The High-Level Summary Technical Assistance Report series provides high-level summaries of the assistance provided to IMF capacity development recipients, describing the high-level objectives, findings, and recommendations.
2024
April 16, 2024
Cabo Verde: Climate Policy Assessment
Description: Cabo Verde faces development challenges from multiple structural factors, including insularity, territorial discontinuity, fragility of ecosystems, and scarcity of natural resources, namely water and arable land. Climate change implications are amplifying these challenges. As an island extension of the arid Sahel zone, Cabo Verde faces severe water shortage, which the country addresses more and more through energy intensive desalination, using electricity produced largely by thermal power plants, which depend entirely on imported fossil fuels. The resulting high energy prices directly impact the cost of water production. In conjunction with climate change induced aridity, the energy-water-climate nexus presents the core development challenge for the country.
April 16, 2024
Arabic Republic of Egypt: Egyptian Tax Authority: Maintaining Momentum in the Implementation of the Medium-Term Revenue Strategy (MTRS)
Description: The Egyptian Tax Administration (ETA) is undergoing a significant transformation within the framework of the MTRS. This summary provides an overview of ETA's progress in implementing the MTRS tax administration initiatives and highlights priority areas for future action. The report focused on key considerations to maintain reform momentum in tax administration under the MTRS in the areas of governance arrangements, organizational structure, human resource management, digitalization, and risk management. The report also contains a mid-term capacity development plan with identified priority areas to further support implementation of the MTRS in the area of tax administration.
April 10, 2024
Iraq: General Commission for Taxes: Strategic Direction for Prioritized Reforms
Description: The Government of Iraq has embarked on a considerable modernization journey for the General Commission for Taxes (GCT) with the goal of expanding the revenue base following a tax/GDP decline of 1 percentage point in 2022 (from 2 percent in 2020). Taking into account the internal and external challenges, and the findings of the 2022 Tax Administration Diagnostic Assessment Tool (TADAT) and the existing plans of the authorities, the report highlighted core reform areas to be included in a reform plan for the GCT. The report also included an indicative integrated FAD/METAC mid-term capacity development (CD) plan for the next three years.
March 15, 2024
Jordan: Developing Supervisory Review and Evaluation Process SRP Framework
Description: The International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s Middle East Regional Technical Assistance Center (METAC) is currently assisting the Central Bank of Jordan (CBJ) in enhancing its risk-based supervision through the development of a Supervisory Review and Evaluation SRP framework inspired from European Central Bank (ECB) methodology. The Technical Assistance (TA) mission is part of a multi-step medium-term project. The TA mission aimed to design, in coordination with CBJ, a progressive multi-step roadmap defining the major milestones for a full implementation of SRP. The mission noted that several dimensions should be taken into consideration when implementing the SRP, most notably bridging the data gap by building a fully-fledged supervisory risk database through a dedicated IT project, assessing whether the current organization of the Banking Supervisory Department should be adjusted, and progressively cover all material sources of risks in the SRP.
March 12, 2024
Report on Financial Soundness Indicators Technical Assistance
Description: The mission assisted the staff of the Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA) to compile financial soundness indicators (FSIs) in line with the IMF’s 2019 FSIs Compilation Guide, improve the data frequency of FSIs for deposit takers to monthly, and prepare new FSIs for insurance corporations.
March 6, 2024
Report on the Financial Soundness Indicators Technical Assistance Mission
Description: The mission assisted the staff of the Central Bank of the Republic of Azerbaijan (CBAR) in compiling financial soundness indicators (FSIs) in line with the IMF’s 2019 FSIs Compilation Guide. Specifically, the mission assisted the CBAR to compile 14 core and 9 additional monthly FSIs for deposit takers, one additional monthly FSI on real estate markets, and two additional quarterly FSIs on the size of other financial corporation’s subsector.
February 28, 2024
Uganda: PFM Climate Assessment: Public Investment and Fiscal Risks Management
Description: Uganda has committed to an ambitious climate change mitigation and adaption agenda. To achieve this, the country has developed a sound framework to enhance climate change sensitivity across public financial and public investment management. The framework clearly allocates responsibilities, enhances coordination, and requires the identification of climate expenses in the budget documentation. However, gaps remain in some key regulations, primarily on project appraisal, and some initiatives are in early stages of implementation and need further guidance and training. The Climate Public Investment Management Assessment proposes reforms across multiple areas, underscoring as priority areas project appraisal and selection, and budgeting and portfolio management.
February 13, 2024
Republic of Serbia: Report on Government Finance Statistics Technical Assistance
Description: In 2022, Serbia introduced a new budget system law with fiscal rules based on general government, as defined in the international statistical standards. The Serbian Ministry of Finance is committed to upgrading their fiscal reporting so as to report against these fiscal rules by 2025. Against this background, the International Monetary Fund’s Statistics Department has provided technical assistance during 2022 and 2023 to assist the MOF to extend and improve their monthly government finance statistics, in accordance with the Government Finance Statistics Manual 2014, to cover all materially significant general government units.
February 13, 2024
Report on Government Finance & Public Sector Debt Statistics Technical Assistance: Egypt, Arab Republic of
Description: The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF’s) Statistics Department (STA) and Fiscal Affairs Department (FAD) provided technical assistance (TA) on government finance statistics (GFS) and public sector debt statistics (PSDS) to the Ministry of Finance (MOF) of the Arab Republic of Egypt during July 4–17, 2023. This was the first such mission since 2017 and the focus was on assisting the Egyptian MOF to identify the necessary processes and systems required to facilitate the production of high-quality fiscal statistics, compliant with the latest international statistical standards (as per the Government Finance Statistics Manual 2014) both with respect to coverage and presentation.
February 5, 2024
South Sudan: Strengthening Budget Execution
Description: Public financial management reforms in the Government of South Sudan are proceeding within a challenging environment as the post-civil war recovery remains fragile. As a result, the Ministry of Finance and Planning faces significant challenges in preparing realistic budgets and enforcing disciplined budget execution. To strengthen budget execution, the key areas requiring reform include strengthening processes for the management of expenditure and controlling commitments; improving fiscal reporting to ensure it is timely, accurate, and comprehensive; and improved cash management, particularly through implementing a Treasury Single Account. The Government has requested the assistance of a Fiscal Affairs Department Resident Public Financial Management Advisor who has been appointed and will support several reforms to budget execution, cash management, and fiscal reporting.