## Opening Remarks of the First Deputy Managing Director Gita Gopinath

_IMF News, April 28, 2022_

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## Bibliographic details
- Published: April 28, 2022

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### Global context and policy challenges
- The global economy faces "a combination of shocks and policy challenges rarely seen before."
- Key immediate shocks identified:
  - War in Ukraine creating major stresses for the global economy, weakening the post-pandemic recovery and putting macroeconomic stability at risk.
  - Sharply higher uncertainty, trade disruptions, higher energy, food, and other commodity prices adding to inflation pressures, refugees, and tighter financial conditions.
- Longer-term, unprecedented challenges include:
  - Increased inequality
  - Escalating fragility and conflict
  - A growing digital divide
  - The existential threat of climate change
- Low-income countries are particularly vulnerable, and "the poorest are the most exposed of all."

### IMF capacity development (CD) approach and reach
- CD is designed to be country-tailored and aligned with surveillance and lending priorities to help member countries tackle immediate and longer-term challenges.
- Delivery channels:
  - Headquarters in Washington
  - 17 Regional Capacity Development Centers
  - Network of long-term experts in the field
- Technology and delivery since the pandemic:
  - 178 member countries have received CD through 4,000+ remote engagements, a majority benefiting low-income countries and fragile and conflict-affected states.
  - The COVID-19 Crisis Capacity Development Initiative (CCCDI) launched last year with several partners to provide additional CD for emergency pandemic-related needs.
- Core CD expertise areas emphasized:
  - Public financial management systems
  - Budgeting and revenue administration
  - Tax policy
  - Governance

### Concrete CD activities and institutional resilience measures
- Tax administration and revenue:
  - Work to strengthen tax administrations to provide sustainable funding for critical budgetary spending.
  - Support for digital solutions to reduce physical interactions, improve tax collections, and reduce fraud (examples: Chad and Rwanda).
  - Assistance to design business continuity plans for tax administrations (examples: Bolivia, Maldives, and Mongolia).
- Budgetary spending oversight:
  - Strengthening targeting, monitoring, and auditing of emergency COVID-related budgetary spending (example: supporting the Mozambican Supreme Audit Agency to identify legal and institutional constraints hindering audits of COVID-19 emergency spending).
- Central bank and financial sector support:
  - Modernizing frameworks for exchange rate, inflation, and debt management to respond to global inflationary shocks and tighter financial conditions.
  - Strengthening banking supervision to improve financial stability amid large swings in capital flows and to support financial inclusion.
  - Regional peer-learning: supported a regional, peer-learning approach to compile and report on financial soundness indicators in 12 countries across Africa.
- Statistics and data:
  - Working with statistical agencies to improve economic data collection and dissemination for informed policymaking.

### Emerging and expanded CD priorities
- Stepping up CD on transformational frameworks to tackle longer-term challenges:
  - Climate change
  - Green and inclusive growth
  - Special focus including fragile and small island states
- Increasing CD on:
  - Climate change
  - Gender
  - Digital money
- Following the new strategy on Fragile and Conflict-affected States (FCS), plans to ramp up support by expanding field presence and putting more experts in regional centers.
- Kristina Kostial, the IMF’s Coordinator for Climate, to discuss the IMF’s new Climate Strategy later in the meeting.

### Collaboration, partnership, and objectives
- Emphasis on strong partnership and support—financial, technical, and strategic—enabling IMF CD work.
- Objective: partner to provide impactful CD so countries can:
  - Rebuild and strengthen institutions to respond to current massive challenges
  - Lay foundations for long-term resilience and green and inclusive growth
- The dialogue is positioned as an opportunity to listen, learn from member experiences, and gather perspectives on how CD can help countries balance difficult trade-offs and strengthen institutional resilience.

*Opening Remarks of the First Deputy Managing Director Gita Gopinath, At the IMF's Third Capacity Development Dialogue, April 28, 2022.*

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## References

- [Gita Gopinath](https://www.imf.org/en/about/senior-officials/bios/shirin-hamid)
- [Ukraine and the IMF](http://www.imf.org/external/country/UKR/index.htm)
- [Bolivia and the IMF](http://www.imf.org/external/country/BOL/index.htm)
- [Chad and the IMF](http://www.imf.org/external/country/TCD/index.htm)
- [Maldives and the IMF](http://www.imf.org/external/country/MDV/index.htm)
- [Mongolia and the IMF](http://www.imf.org/external/country/MNG/index.htm)
- [Rwanda and the IMF](http://www.imf.org/external/country/RWA/index.htm)
- [Speeches](https://www.imf.org/en/news/searchnews)
- [PRESS CENTER](http://presscenter.imf.org/)
- [https://www.imf.org/en/home](https://www.imf.org/en/home)

_Source: https://www.imf.org/en/news/articles/2022/04/28/sp042822-imf-third-capacity-development-dialogue-gita-gopinath-remarks_