A Spotlight on the IMF's Technical Assistance

IMF Blog, October 13, 2011

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Technical assistance (TA) is one of the three main pillars of the IMF’s work and plays a central “glue” role alongside lending and surveillance.
TA helps countries prevent, prepare for, and resolve crises and helps them “master the form and details to govern themselves in an effective and legitimate way.”
TA must adapt quickly to emerging challenges, including advice on crisis resolution, linkages between countries’ economies and financial systems, and sustainable debt strategies.

Donor contributions have enabled responsiveness to rising demand for both basic and specialized advice.
In 2011, donors financed about 75 percent of technical assistance, up from about 60 percent in 2007.
The number of donor countries has almost doubled to over 40.

Regional Technical Assistance Centers bring IMF expertise closer to end-users and focus on key issues, enabled by donor support.
The IMF will officially open its latest regional technical assistance center in Mauritius on October 17.
Plans are under way to secure support for another regional center to serve non-Francophone Western Africa; it would be the fifth center in sub-Saharan Africa and boost coverage on the continent.
Resident representatives and regional center coordinators maintain continuous dialogue with international development partners, local and international civil society organizations, and other TA providers to improve cooperation.

Technical assistance and training form a continuum and complement each other with the common goal of building capacity to support and realize good government policies.
Training helps officials acquire skills needed to implement IMF advice.
Following the global financial crisis, many countries used fiscal policy to cushion the impact; some low-income countries that had earlier benefited from debt relief are seeing debt levels rise again and are requesting help in drafting medium-term debt management strategies.
The IMF leverages experience and expertise of people from over 100 countries to enable adopting best practices.

There is a need to be more rigorous about objectives and measurement to assess TA impact on member countries’ strategic objectives, for example, “bringing in more revenue to create space for poverty-reducing expenditure.”
Donor partners are calling for more results-based management to inform management decisions and to identify and communicate achievements more clearly.
Measurement efforts must be realistic about what can be achieved and measured given influences such as economic shocks, political events, and ripple effects from events in the United States, Europe and elsewhere.

Source: A Spotlight on the IMF's Technical Assistance — Nemat Shafik, October 13, 2011.