Press Release No. 15/164

Press Release: AFRITAC South Strengthens Member States Macroeconomic Management

April 8, 2015

The Steering Committee of the International Monetary Fund’s Regional Technical Assistance Center for Southern Africa (AFRITAC South¹) met in Johannesburg, South Africa, from April 1–2, 2015.

Mr. Mcebisi Jonas, Deputy Minister of Finance of South Africa, underscored the importance of capacity and institution building for sustainable development. He also emphasized that technical assistance should respond to policy priorities of member countries and should rely on innovative, smart delivery modalities. Mr. Jonas called for prioritizing technical assistance to low-income countries.

At the conclusion of the Steering Committee meeting, Ms. Nomfundo Ngwenya, Chair of the Steering Committee meeting and the Chief Director for African Economic Integration at the National Treasury of South Africa, and Mr. Vitaliy Kramarenko, AFRITAC South Coordinator, issued the following joint statement:

“Members of the Steering Committee noted good progress toward FY 2015² work program implementation, in particular in the areas of public financial management, revenue administration, and real sector statistics. The center is expected to increase its activities by about 25 percent in FY 2015. They also welcomed the beginning of intensive engagement with Madagascar following its political stabilization.

“The Committee endorsed the Work Program for FY2016 and welcomed a further increase in the share of resources allocated to low-income countries. It also emphasized the importance of achieving the targeted increases in the priority areas of financial sector supervision and monetary policy framework operations. The Committee agreed that the funding of statistical agencies should be increased to ensure sustainable progress in improving the quality and timeliness of statistics.

“Members of the Committee reviewed the experience of joint management of AFRITAC South and the IMF’s Africa Training Institute (ATI) over the last two years. They welcomed a significant increase in joint activities between the ATI and AFRITACs and a closer coordination between training and technical assistance. The Committee endorsed the joint management of AFRITAC South and the ATI as a permanent arrangement.

“AFRITAC South received a positive assessment of its activities by an external evaluator. Among the recommendations of the external evaluation, the Steering Committee attached high priority to reviewing resource allocation across technical assistance areas; to fine-tuning the results-based management framework and better linking it to standardized, disaggregated budget indicators; and to strengthening the coordinating role of country representatives on the Steering Committee. Based on this discussion, the external evaluation report and the response of the IMF staff to its recommendations will be finalized by June 2015.”

The AFRITAC South Steering Committee is currently chaired by South Africa. This sixth meeting was attended by officials from eleven AFRITAC South member countries: Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe; and the following donor representatives: the African Development Bank, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development of Canada, the U.K. Government Department for International Development (DFID), the European Union, the European Investment Bank (EIB), Germany (represented by German International Cooperation (GIZ)), and the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO).

AFRITAC South is one of nine regional IMF technical assistance (TA) centers around the world (of which five are in Africa) and offers capacity building services to member countries in its core areas of expertise, namely public financial management, revenue administration, financial sector supervision, monetary policy framework operations, and real sector statistics

Useful links:
IMF Technical Assistance
Factsheet: IMF Technical Assistance Centers

¹ The center serves Angola, Botswana, Comoros, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

² Financial Year (FY) 2015 covers the period May1, 2014–April 30, 2015.