The West African Institute for Financial and Economic Management (WAIFEM) in collaboration with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Monday, 2nd July began a two-week regional course on financial programming and policies at the Paradise Suites Hotel in Kololi.

In his opening remarks, Mr. Bamba Saho, deputising for the governor of the Central Bank of The Gambia, Honourable Famara Jatta commended WAIFEM and IMF for their collaborative efforts in organising the course. 

“On behalf of the board of governors of WAIFEM, I request Dr Francoise Le Gall to please convey the board’s sincere appreciation to the management of the IMF for this joint course.  I also urge you to extend the board’s gratitude to the government of Japan for providing the funding for this annual joint programme over the years,” he said.

According to him, a financial programme (FP) is a comprehensive set of policy measures designed to achieve certain macro economic objectives.  He noted that financial programming has since the early 1950s been the centre piece of the analysis leading to IMF conditionality of the policy actions that a borrowing country must take to have access to IMF credit. Since the 1990s, the needs of the authorities to correct macro economic imbalances and price and exchange rate distortions to meet growth and poverty reduction objectives have underscored the preparation of a financial programme by the authorities.

“Desirable as a financial programme may be to developing countries like ours, there is no easy path to its formulation. The challenges involved in preparing a financial programme are many. These include lack of reliable and timely data. In general, the macro-economic manager in our region is confronted with using estimates of macro-economic aggregates due to the absence of actual figures. This situation arises from the existence of weak and under-resourced national facilities. Statistics matter a great deal in modern economic management. It is important, therefore that West African governments accord greater importance to their national statistics agencies and adequately resource them for increased effectiveness”, he said.

Mr. Saho added that it is heartening that the sustained reforms and strong policy implementation of The Gambia over the years have started yielding results. He noted for instance, the latest progress report by the West African Monetary Zone which was submitted to the meeting of the convergence council of the zone in Abuja last May, which indicated that for the first time ever, two countries, The Gambia and Nigeria, met the four (4) primary convergence criteria which are preconditions for monetary union.

“We in The Gambia will remain committed to sustaining the credible track record on our economic reform programme even as we reiterate our commitment to the monetary union project”, he concluded.

In his welcoming remarks, Dr Osic Itsede, Director General, WAIFEM said that WAIFEM was established in 1996 by the central banks of The Gambia, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, principally to build capacity for sound macro-economic and financial management in the countries concerned.  He added that this year marks a decade of conducting training and capacity building programmes by WAIFEM not only for the five constituent member countries but also for countries as far as Angola, Sudan and others in Latin America.

One of the elements of the institute’s current strategic plan is fast tracking capacity building for economic and financial management for its two post conflict member countries, namely Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Other speakers included Dr Francoise Le Gall, Deputy Chief, African Division, IMF institute and team leader. Mrs. OO Jemilugba, Executive Assistant to the Director General, WAIFEM gave the vote of thanks.