Training Program

All government officials are welcome to register. This course is particularly useful for officials from ministries of finance, debt agencies, central banks, and other government agencies responsible for implementing macroeconomic and debt policies.

Some knowledge of economics would be helpful. Basic Microsoft Excel skills and access to a computer with a reliable internet connection and a Google Chrome web browser are essential.

This six-hour online course, presented by the Institute for Capacity Development, explains how to project the evolution of the stock of public debt over time for the baseline (most likely) and alternative scenarios, and how to estimate paths of fiscal adjustments consistent with a pre-determined target level of debt. This is done with the easy-to-use Excel-based Public Debt Dynamics Tool (DDT). Using projections of some 10 key macroeconomic and fiscal variables, the DDT provides public debt projections under baseline and stress test scenarios, including through fan charts that describe uncertainty. The DDT also identifies the main drivers of public debt changes and computes measures of fiscal adjustments that are necessary to achieve a user-defined public debt target.