Research at the IMF: Patrizia Tumbarello

Patrizia Tumbarello

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BACKGROUND

Patrizia Tumbarello is Deputy Director in the Fiscal Affairs Department (FAD) of the IMF. Prior to this job, she was Assistant Director, Mission Chief for Ecuador in the Western Hemisphere Department (WHD) at the IMF. In the past she was mission chief for Haiti and coordinator of technical assistance work provided to WHD countries, WHD coordinator of the work of Fragile and Conflict-Affected States and of low-income countries. Previously she was the Chief of the Strategy, Standards, and Review Division—the surveillance division of the Statistics Department (STA), with purview of Article IV and Article VIII issues, leading the policy and operational work of the “Data Standards Initiatives” at the IMF (e-GDDS, SDDS, and SDDS plus), within and outside the institution; Review of the Policy Framework "Data Provision to the Fund for Surveillance Purposes" which facilitate the provision and dissemination of data for surveillance by member countries, in collaboration with the Strategy, Policy and Review Department (SPR) and the Legal Department (LEG); and “Third-Party Indicators” policy, with SPR. While in STA she was also responsible for STA Review of Fund's Policy and Country documents. She led the data standards missions to the UK (SDDS Plus), Saudi Arabia (SDDS), and to Angola (e-GDDS). Before joining STA, she was the Unit Chief of the Pacific Islands/Small States Unit in APD coordinating all the work of 12 small states in the Pacific. She advocated for the macro-criticality of natural disasters in IMF work to enhance resilience in small states already starting in 2009/2010, organizing high-level conferences with management and senior leaders’ participation, leading analysis, developing training for mission chiefs, co-leading Board papers. During her tenure as mission chief for the Solomon Islands during 2011-16, she negotiated successfully and completed all reviews of the ECF and Standby Arrangements. She also conducted three Article IV consultations. She also advocated for regional and multilateral solutions to tackle the challenges Solomon Islands, a complex fragile state and more in general the Pacific islands, faced from a financial stability perspective, due to the loss of corresponding banking relationships (CBRs), meeting with the FED and key development partners, working closely with the WB and ADB. Her previous assignments included senior desk work on Australia (G20), low-income countries (Moldova, The Gambia), including few Pacific Islands (Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, and Samoa), EMs (Albania, Algeria, Morocco, and Vietnam), accumulating experience on a wide range of countries (surveillance, G20, program, small, fragile, LICs, and EMs). She also worked for five years in SPR on trade policy, multilateral surveillance, and DSA framework. Her research papers have focused on enhancing macroeconomic resilience to climate change, challenges faced by low-income-countries and fragile states in dealing with loss of CBR, on fiscal frameworks, trade integration, corporate, banks’, and households balance sheet’s vulnerabilities, and more recently on big data, on data transparency and governance, and on measuring the impact of digitalization and the pandemic on inequality. While in STA, she led the IMF work of the first Strategy on Data and Statistics at the Fund endorsed by the Board in 2018 managing a Fund wide Taskforce of 40 members, liaising with many external stakeholders and organizing the first data Hackathon at the Fund, which included also Google, Bloomberg, Haver, IFIs, and academia. The Data Strategy introduced transformational changes in the data governance within the IMF, by giving the statistics department primary responsibility for data management, and mainstreamed the use of big data at the IMF.

Email: PTUMBARELLO@imf.org

Fluent In: French, Italian, Spanish.