Press Release No. 15/99

Press Release: Making SSA Countries More Resilient to External Shocks: A Presidential Lecture at the IMF’s Africa Training Institute in Mauritius Concludes

March 9, 2015

At the first annual Presidential Lecture Series of the institute on March 3, Mauritian President Rajkeswur Purryag and IMF African Department Director Antoinette Sayeh emphasized the importance of economic policies that would make sub-Saharan Africa countries more resilient to external shocks, while ensuring the continuation of programs of economic development, structural transformation, job creation, and poverty reduction.

The lecture aimed to bring together policymakers from frontier emerging market countries (Gabon, Ghana, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mauritius, Nigeria, Swaziland, and Zambia) to discuss relevant economic issues.

University of Chile Professor and former Governor of the Central Bank of Chile José De Gregorio noted in his lecture that frontier and emerging market countries face several key challenges, including volatile capital flows, declining commodity prices, and an asynchronous exit from unconventional monetary policy.

Participants discussed a range of issues, including foreign exchange intervention policy, benefits of and pre-conditions for greater exchange rate flexibility, select aspects of prudential regulation and supervision, and transmission mechanisms of monetary policy in under developed financial market.

The Presidential Lecture followed a high-level conference on capital flows jointly organized by the IMF’s Research Department and the Africa Training Institute in Mauritius, on March 2, 2015.