NEWSLETTER: JANUARY - JUNE 2022 French Portuguese The Africa Training Institute (ATI) is part of a network of IMF regional training centers around the world, which help develop countries’ policymaking capacity by transferring economic skills and best practices. Mauritius, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa, Zimbabwe, China, Germany, and European Investment bank are the current donors of the institute. The institute is located in Bramer House, Ebene, Mauritius. WHAT’S INSIDE THIS ISSUE Highlights ATI Training Webinars and Conferences Feedback from Participants on ATI CD Events Social events Highlights by Mr. Abdoul Aziz Wane ATI Director During the six months between January and June 2022, ATI continued to deliver on its mandate to provide high-quality, demand-driven capacity development to its 45 member countries, both through 24 classroom courses and 9 non-course CD activities such as webinars and conferences. Without overlooking our successful role in providing training on standard macroeconomic and financial topics, ATI is increasingly tuned to the changes in the demand for training in Sub-Saharan Africa. In that context, this newsletter covers CD activities hosted by ATI on new topics, such as Gender Equality, Climate Change, Fintech, Central Bank Digital Currencies, and Governance. These activities include a high-level conference on governance and fight against corruption, which took place in Botswana and was one of the highpoints of ATI’s agenda during the first six months of the year. Other highlights for the period are the high-level conference that followed the course on Gender Equality and Macroeconomics and the 9th Meeting of ATI’s Steering Committee, which was organized in the wake of similar steering committee meeting of AFRITAC West 2, in Accra, Ghana, and discussed both ATI’s current activities, the work program for fiscal year 2023, and the strategic plans for the medium-term. Enjoy the reading! ATI TRAINING During January-June 2022, ATI hosted a selection of 24 courses on core IMF areas—financial policies and macroeconomics—and emerging areas such as gender equality, digitalization, and climate change. Below, we highlight some of these courses. The remaining courses delivered during the period are available in Table 1. As of May 2021, all ATI courses are delivered in the three languages, typically in English with simultaneous interpretation into French and Portuguese. ATI TRAINING Gender Equality and Macroeconomics January 24- February 3, 2022 The IMF’s first comprehensive course on Gender Equality and Macroeconomics—a joint effort with UN Women—reached 45 selected participants, including 25 women, from 21 countries. Participants learned about and discussed several dimensions of gender equality, the impact of inequality on macroeconomic performance, and possible policy responses. A companion high-level seminar highlighted the particularly large gains—for individuals, families, and the ensemble of economies—associated with eradicating gender-based violence in the African region. With opening remarks from IMF’s Senior Advisor on Gender, Ms. Ratna Sahay, and UN Women Regional Director, Mr. Maxime Houinato, the webinar was attended by 214 participants and featured presentations by Rwanda’s Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion, Ms. Mireille Batamuliza and staff from the IMF and UN women. ATI TRAINING Safeguards Seminar for the Africa Region February 14- 18, 2022 The course exposed central bank officials to the IMF safeguards assessment methodology. It focused on central bank governance, the importance of independent oversight, transparency, and accountability for improving financial safeguards. The course also provided a forum for central bank staff to exchange views on their experiences in reinforcing safeguards and governance frameworks and dealing with emerging issues. ATI TRAINING The Macroeconomics of Climate Change April 18- 21, 2022 This 4-day course was the first delivered on Climate Change at ATI. It provided an overview of the science and economic costs of global warming, discussed adaptation and mitigation policy options for tackling climate change—including pricing carbon emissions as well as greening the economy with the removal of fossil fuels subsidies—while taking stock of the global climate debate, and analyzed challenges and opportunities related to transitioning to greener economic models. Hands-on workshops exercises allowed participants to gain a practical understanding of how climate policies can be made inclusive. ATI TRAINING Selected Issues in Regulation and Supervision of Fintech March 7- 10, 2022 The course on Selected Issues in Regulation and Supervision of Fintech (SIFR), organized by IMF MCM Department, was held at ATI during 7-10 Mar 2022, and was led by Parma Bains, assisted by Ebru Sonbul Iskender and Nobu Sugimoto. Attended by 43 participants, it focused on global developments in the regulation of fintech, the implications of BigTech in financial services, policy implications of a technology neutral approach to regulation, the growth of Supervisory Technology (SupTech), and the need for public-private collaboration in Regulatory Technology (RegTech). Some participants made presentations on the status of Fintech in their countries. The course was well appreciated by participants, who appreciated the coverage of technical subjects that are, in many cases, difficult to approach given the heterogeneity of current regulatory situations across countries, in many cases non-existent or very incipient, and which are falling behind when considering recent and ongoing technological advances. ATI TRAINING Thinking through Central Bank Digital Currency March 14-16, 2022 This course—attended by more than 40 participants, from 26 central banks, including 9 fragile economies—focused on the high-level decision-making and project management process regarding CBDCs. Designed to be highly interactive—through a combination of lectures, case studies/simulations, and panel discussions—the course was received with strong engagement from participants, who provided very positive post-course survey comments. Participants were particularly enthusiastic about the helpful and useful insights on CBDCs, including for practical application in countries that are advancing on the process of rolling out e-currencies (e.g., Ghana). Participants also benefitted for the course’s peer-leaning dimension, whereby officials from central bank of participating countries shared first-hand details about their work on CBDCs. ATI TRAINING DSDR II- Legal Aspects of International Borrowing- LEAB April 4-8, 2022 The course on Legal Aspects of International Borrowing is part of the Debt Sustainability and Debt Restructuring (DSDR) training stream. It was organized by the Legal Department, with the contribution of Sovereign Debt Forum (SDF) team. The course provided participants with (i) an overview of international capital markets and different debt instruments, (ii) an understanding in drafting and negotiating key contractual clauses in debt instruments, (iii) an outline of public debt management legal frameworks and key legal issues supporting debt transparency, and (iv) the role, policies, and mandate of the IMF regarding sovereign debt. The course was attended by 60 participants and was well received by participants, who nevertheless suggested the use of more interactive sessions. WEBINARS To complement classroom training and diversify its modalities of CD delivery, ATI hosted several non-course events (webinars, virtual conferences, and workshops) between January and June 2022. Below, we highlight 5 of such events. Additional events are described in Table 2. WEBINAR Joint ATI/AFS/AFE Workshop: The Experience with FPAS in Sub-Saharan African Central Banks January 10-14, 2022 The workshop was based on the recent MCM-ICD departmental paper “Taking Stock of IMF Capacity Development on Monetary Policy Forecasting and Policy Analysis Systems (FPAS),” which discusses practical modeling and implementation issues that arise in the context of Fund TA on FPAS. Forecasters from central banks and IMF staff from ATI, AFS, AFE, MCM, ICD, and AFR shared experiences with using the FPAS to inform monetary policy decision-making. The event had speakers from 18 central banks and was attended on average by over 235 participants. WEBINAR High-Level ATI-CEF Webinar: Economic Diversification February 9, 2022 This was the second high-level webinar jointly organized by ATI and the IMF's Middle East Center for Economics and Finance (CEF). The event, entitled “The lessons from success cases in economic diversification: the way forward for Africa and the Middle East,” drew world-class speakers such as Professor Jose Antonio Ocampo (Columbia University), IMF experts and senior officials, and policymakers, such as his Excellency Abdelaziz Al Nuaimi, Assistant Undersecretary of Trade Affairs Sector in the U.A.E. The seminar was attended by over 550 participants and brought many discussions on topics such as the impact of digitalization, exchange rate policies, financial inclusion, and the COVID-19 pandemic on economic diversification. WEBINAR High-Level Conference: Modernizing Monetary Policy in Sub-Saharan Africa February 28 – March 2, 2022 The conference, companion to the peer-to-peer workshop on the experience with FPAS in SSA central banks, and jointly organized by ATI/ICD/MCM/AFS/AFE, provided an opportunity for high-level officials in SSA central banks to reflect upon the monetary reforms implemented in the region and elsewhere over the recent past and discussed ways to move forward, inspired by regional experiences and prominent world experts in monetary policy. Senior officials—governors, deputy governors, and heads of departments—from 21 SSA central banks participated, with presentations from 13 SSA policymakers; senior officials from the European Central Bank, Czech National Bank, and the BIS; the World Bank’s Chief Economist, Ms. Carmen Reinhart; and leading scholars, such as professors John Taylor (Stanford University), Athanasios Orphanides (MIT), Kristin Forbes (MIT), and Andrew Levin (Dartmouth College). Senior IMF staff also actively participated in the conference—the Director of the IMF’s African Department, Mr. Abebe Selassie, provided the opening remarks; MCM Director, Tobias Adrian, presented on “Reforming Monetary Policy Frameworks and Modernizing Central Banking,” and Deputy Directors from ICD (Andrew Berg), MCM (Chis Erceg, Jihad Alwazir, and Dong He), and the Research Department (Antonio Spilimbergo) moderated several sessions. The event was attended by 135 participants—who appreciated the opportunity for peer-leaning—and was well received: 82 percent of participants surveyed found it to be “very useful” for their work, and 94 percent would be interested in attending a similar event, on the same topic in the future. WEBINAR 9th ATI Steering Committee Meeting June 8, 2022 ATI’s 9th Steering Committee Meeting took place in Accra, Ghana. It was chaired by Mr. Sheku Bangura, Deputy Minister of Finance of the Republic of Sierra Leone and attended by 78 officials of 12 contributing member-countries and representatives of contributing partners, including the European Investment Bank, the People’s Bank of China, South African Reserve Bank and Germany’s Federal Ministry of Finance. Several observers from different constituencies also attended. Steering Committee (SC) members and observers praised ATI for its quick reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic-related travel and mobility restrictions, by adapting its delivery of capacity development to the virtual environment, and for continuing acting upon the recommendations of the 6th SC Meeting (2019) to scale up its operations and ramp up the engagement on new priorities such as gender, climate change, digitalization, and governance. The SC noted that unmet demand for ATI training remains high, despite the efforts to boost supply and encouraged the continued using of virtual delivery, while recognizing that it alone cannot replace in-person engagement. The SC supported ATI’s ongoing efforts to diversify modalities of capacity development delivery and plans to use a mix of in-person, virtual, hybrid and blended engagement going forward. The Committee also endorsed ATI’s FY23 work program and budget, including the hiring of additional staff to help the center cope with the scaling up of operations required to meet the high demand, while encouraging ATI to strengthen partnerships with CD providers in the region. The SC noticed the recent progress in ATI fundraising and urged ATI member countries to contribute to finance the center’s operations during its Phase II. WEBINAR High-Level Conference: Promotion of Good Governance and Fight Against Corruption June 13-14, 2022 The high-level conference was jointly organized by ATI and the Department of the Economic Development, Trade, Industry and Mining (ETTIM) of the African Union Commission (AUC), in Gaborone, Botswana. Officials from the IMF, AUC, African countries’ governance and anti-corruption agencies, and policymakers joined representatives of other international organizations—e.g., Transparency International and INTOSAI—as well as from the private sector and academia, to discuss the macro-critical impacts of poor governance and corruption and the benefits derived from good governance and improving anti-corruption frameworks to promote economic growth, job creation, and poverty reduction, in line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and the AUC’s Agenda 2063. In addition, the conference also discussed capacity development needs, in the SSA region, on governance and corruption issues and the newly released IMF book—"Good Governance in Sub-Saharan Africa: Opportunities and Lessons,” co-edited by ATI Director, M. Abdoul Wane. The book addresses the implementation of good governance practices in Africa and presents recommendations to enhance the effectiveness of the administration of public finances and management of natural resources. Botswana’s Secretary for Development and Budget, Mr. Olesitse Masimega, welcomed the delegates and highlighted the burden that weak governance and corruption impose on government budgets and expected outcomes of public services. IMF Deputy Managing Director, Ms. Antoinette Sayeh, delivered the keynote speech, focusing on how countries with stronger economic institutions are more resilient and respond more effectively to crises regardless of the level of development, and on the importance of reforms for institutional building. To close the event, Bank of Botswana’ Governor, Mr Moses Pelaelo, emphasized the opportunity for African countries to harness the benefits of digitalization to enhance transparency, good governance, and fight corruption, underscoring the need to allocate resources towards digitization initiatives. About 80 participants attended. FEEDBACK FROM PARTICIPANTS acquire new knowledge and to polish some of the knowledge acquired at university. Mr. Inocêncio Eduardo Nangolo LUCAS, Customs Agent, Accounting, Thesaurus and State Heritage Department, Ministry of Finance, Angola I feel very happy to have been selected to attend the courses of the International Monetary Fund. I must say that this has been a unique experience because these courses, in this particular case the course on Macroeconomic Diagnosis, have been extremely important, as they have allowed me to acquire new knowledge and to polish some of the knowledge acquired at university and in the exercise of my duties as a technician in the Department of Accounting, Treasury and State Assets. It should also be highlighted that the competence and mastery of the teachers of the course themes was fundamental for learning to be faster and for my participation throughout the course to be more fruitful. Finally, I would like to emphasize that among the numerous skills acquired while attending this course, I can highlight the following: (1) analyze and calculate the Gross Domestic Product in the three optics and assess the medium-term prospects of the economy, especially the sustainability of the public and external debt; (2) analyze potential output, calculate output gaps, and diagnose the prospects for the economy as a whole; (3) assess the stance of current fiscal, monetary, exchange rate and financial policies; (4) assess macro-financial linkages, including through the analysis of financial sector soundness indicators; and (5) identify possible external and internal economic risks and vulnerabilities to economic growth, and appropriate policies to address them. Once again, on my own behalf I thank the course sponsors and the IMF, the lecturers, and the entire team that directly or indirectly has contributed to expanding human capital in Africa. Consistent with all the elements that the economists in charge of monetary policy should master. Mr. Nady Velonandro RAPELANORO RABENJA, Economist/Assistant, Directorate of Monetary Operations, Central Bank, Madagascar Regarding my experience during the AT 22.06V Monetary Policy training, I mainly remember: (1) the relevance of the themes developed, which are consistent with all the elements that the economists in charge of monetary policy should master for its efficient implementation according to the operational framework; and (2) the mastery of the themes and the matching of the theoretical fundamentals with the operational implementation of monetary policy by the speakers. I highly recommend this training for anyone who wants to deepen their knowledge on this main assignment of any central bank. Comprehensive exposure to the supervision of weak and problem banks, the importance of contingency planning and effective resolution regimes. Ms. Marie Medgee LAURICOURT, Chief, Banking Supervision, Bank of Mauritius, Mauritius There could not have been a better topic for a training course than “Bank Restructuring and Resolution” at a time when the Covid-19 Pandemic continues to impact the world negatively, impeding economic recovery and exposing banking systems to high vulnerabilities. Against this backdrop, the course has been beneficial in various respects. It has highlighted the role of the bank supervisor—how he/she needs to be well equipped in terms of knowledge and appropriate tools to diagnose and address banking sector distress, in a timely manner. Participants were provided with a comprehensive exposure to the supervision of weak and problem banks, the importance of contingency planning and effective resolution regimes. The sharing of practical experiences in the resolution of failed banks and exercises for participants have equally been very helpful. I wish to express my sincere gratitude to the IMF/ATI for having organized such an interesting course. SOCIAL EVENTS Farewell to Mr. Abdoul Aziz Wane, Director of ATI and AFRITAC South As a tribute to our (now former) director, Mr. Abdoul Wane, staff from ATI and AFRITAC South organized a dinner in his honor at the Anantara Resort on July 29, 2022. Staff celebrated Abdoul’s exceptional and unflinching leadership, as well as his analytical and strategic approach that projected ATI to new heights in terms of regional and global recognition for the capacity development services delivered in Africa. Through emotional speeches and written messages, ATI staff expressed their heartfelt gratitude to Abdoul’s outstanding management of the center and for extracting the best of us in our work. Abdoul has undoubtedly left his imprint at ATI and in our hearts, not only as a visionary leader, but also as a great human being and colleague whose kindness, humbleness, intelligence, and guidance will always be remembered. We wish Abdoul all the best in his future endeavors, first at Oxford University—where he will be spending the next 12 months working with renowned Professor Paul Collier, doing research on economic fragility—and then at the Fund—where his research will help guide the role of international organizations in episodes of fragility and possible complementary approaches the Fund could consider in the implementation of its own strategy for fragile states. We will never forget you, Abdoul! ABDOUL AZIZ WANE Director, Africa Training Institute and AFRITAC South Thank you for reading this Newsletter! Please send me a note for any further inquiries. Surprise a colleague: forward this email IMF.org/CapDev IMF.org/Training The Africa Training Institute (ATI) is part of a network of IMF regional training centers around the world, which help develop countries’ policymaking capacity by transferring economic skills and best practices. Mauritius, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa, Zimbabwe, China, Germany, and European Investment bank are the current donors of the institute. The institute is located in Bramer House, Ebene, Mauritius. CONTRIBUTING PARTNER - PHASE I CONTRIBUTING PARTNER - PHASE II NEWSLETTER ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The preparation of this 8th Edition of the Newsletter was prepared by Ms. Charline Ramspacher, Economist at ATI, and Mr. Carlos de Resende, Deputy Director at ATI. Ms. Wenda Morin, Program Officer, coordinated the logistics and editorial process. We would like to express our deep appreciation for contributions from: Mr. Kanand Gooly, Chief of Administration, ATI-IMF, Mauritius Mr. Ian James Nield, Economist, ATI-IMF, Mauritius Ms. Deena Veerapen, Program Officer, ATI-IMF, Mauritius Ms. Diksha Ramdawa, Program Officer, ATI-IMF, Mauritius Ms. Anna Joorun, Junior Program Officer, ATI-IMF, Mauritius Mr. Steeve Rackin, IT Technician, ATI-IMF, Mauritius, Mauritius Mr. Inocêncio Eduardo Nangolo Lucas , Customs Agent, Accounting, Thesaurus and State Heritage Department, Ministry of Finance, Angola Mr. Nady Velonandro Rapelanoro Rabenja , Economist/Assistant, Directorate of Monetary Operations, Central Bank, Madagascar Ms. Marie Medgee Lauricourt , Chief, Banking Supervision, Bank of Mauritius, Mauritius