## Help in the Neighborhood: 'Just a Phone Call Away'

_IMF Blog, March 25, 2010_

## Source details

**Canonical URL:** [Help in the Neighborhood: 'Just a Phone Call Away'](https://www.imf.org/en/blogs/articles/2010/03/25/help-in-the-neighborhood-just-a-phone-call-away)

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## Bibliographic details
- Authors: working through the nitty-gritty details, putting together the nuts, bolts.
- Published: March 25, 2010

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### Role and objective of regional technical assistance centers
- Regional technical assistance centers have gradually evolved to play a major role in IMF technical assistance.
- These centers, which are largely donor financed, have become important vehicles for helping countries carry out economic reforms.
- Their objective is to assist countries in designing and implementing their poverty reduction and broader developmental strategies and help countries integrate into the world economy.
- Typical areas of support include:
  - Strengthening public financial management to improve governance and transparency and facilitate donors’ use of budget support instruments.
  - Improving tax and customs administration to create a more conducive environment for investment and growth, increase the resource envelope for poverty reducing spending, and reduce opportunities for corruption.
  - Facilitating trade and enabling countries to take better advantage of globalization.

### Operational features and comparative advantages
- Each center is staffed with resident advisors whose mix of expertise reflects the technical assistance needs of the group of countries they serve.
- The centers are close to the countries they serve and flexible in their delivery of services, making them well placed to handle reform implementation issues on a day-to-day basis.
- Resident advisors at regional centers are able to develop deep knowledge of the circumstances and needs of the countries, including cross-cutting and regional issues, and provide intensive and constant follow-up on assistance delivered.
- Beneficiary countries’ perspective: “They are just a phone call away” and will accompany the government all the way in implementing economic reforms, including overcoming practical obstacles by working through the nitty-gritty details and putting together the nuts and bolts.

### Economies of scale, knowledge sharing, and regional integration
- Regional centers can naturally exploit economies of scale because neighboring countries typically have similar economic structures and assistance needs, enabling more help to be delivered at lower cost.
- Regional centers promote the sharing of reform experiences between countries, allowing officials to adopt tried and tested best practices while minimizing reform risks.
- Centers can further regional harmonization and integration efforts of beneficiary countries by:
  - Mirroring groupings of relevant regional organizations and coordinating economic policies and harmonization of standards.
  - Supporting collective regional initiatives (example below).

### Example: Central America, Panama, and the Dominican Republic center
- The dominant motivation for requesting a regional center in Central America, Panama, and the Dominican Republic was to use the regional center as a vehicle for regional integration efforts.
- The region sought deeper economic integration and collective insertion into the global economy.
- The center is set to support the countries’ push for integration, including:
  - Plans for a regional customs union.
  - Free trade agreements with other regions.
  - Regional aspects of banking supervision and regulation.

### Governance, ownership, and coordination
- One of the strongest features of the regional centers is their governance structure, which integrates all stakeholders.
- All regional centers are guided by steering committees comprising representatives from donors, beneficiary countries, and other international agencies.
- These steering committees:
  - Help promote aid coordination and ownership of reforms, in line with the objectives of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness.
  - Provide strategic guidance for the centers' work plans through a consultative process that helps build shared ownership of the assistance delivered.

### Expansion and coverage plans
- At stakeholders’ request and given positive feedback, the IMF is seeking to scale up the regional approach to technical assistance by:
  - Expanding the scale of operations of many existing centers.
  - Opening new centers: in addition to the new center for Central America that opened in 2009, further plans include a new center in Central Asia and two additional ones in Africa.
- When complete, the 10 regional centers will cover 102 countries, including all of sub-Saharan Africa.

_March 25, 2010 — Help in the Neighborhood: 'Just a Phone Call Away'_

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## References

- [Antoinette Sayeh](http://blogs.imf.org/bloggers/antoinette-sayeh/)
- [her recent post](http://blogs.imf.org/2009/09/10/imf-helping-africa/)

_Source: https://www.imf.org/en/blogs/articles/2010/03/25/help-in-the-neighborhood-just-a-phone-call-away_