Project profile — Canada-International Monetary Fund Technical Assistance - Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa

• Africa, regional (50.00%)
• America, regional (50.00%)

• Government And Civil Society, General: Public finance management (15111) (50.00%)
• Banking And Financial Services: Financial policy and administrative management (24010) (50.00%)

• Gender equality (not targeted)
• Environmental sustainability (cross-cutting) (not targeted)
• Participatory development and good governance (significant objective)
• Trade development (not targeted)
• Biodiversity (not targeted)
• Climate change mitigation (not targeted)
• Climate Change Adaptation (not targeted)
• Urban issues (not targeted)
• Desertification (not targeted)
• Children's issues (not targeted)
• Youth Issues (not targeted)
• Indigenous Issues (not targeted)
• Disability (not targeted)
• ICT as a tool for development (not targeted)

CIDA’s grant to the Canada-IMF Technical Assistance Sub-Account supports technical assistance to developing country governments to build their capacity to address public debt, balance of payments problems, and financial sector crises. Specific areas of technical assistance include public debt management, public expenditure management, and financial sector reform. Activities include diagnostic studies, training courses, workshops, on-line advice and support, and the placement of technical assistance experts and advisors. Technical assistance is a core activity of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and accounts for one quarter of its operations budget. IMF technical assistance helps countries design and implement sound macroeconomic policy, which is essential to sustainable economic development and a key element of the response to financial crises. The majority of the Fund’s technical assistance is provided to low- and lower-income countries. By helping individual countries reduce economic weaknesses and vulnerabilities, the Fund’s technical assistance contributes to a more robust and stable global economy.

Expected intermediate results for this project include: improved management of public finances in developing countries; and strengthened financial sector supervision and regulation.

Results achieved as of June 2017 include: (1) in the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union, eleven participants graduated from a 6-month intensive Debt Management Program, forming a network of public debt specialists ready to apply the acquired skills in their respective national Debt Management Offices (DMO). The certified graduates can now operate in the Regional Government Securities Market auction system without supervision from the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank. This is a first, as no DMO staff in the region had previously been certified by the Eastern Caribbean Securities Market; (2) a roll out of a Treasury Single Account (TSA) in Haiti continued during the reporting period, with focus placed on consolidating the central government coverage of the TSA. Establishing a TSA and creating accounting functions is helping Haiti achieve substantial benefits, such as a consolidated view of government resources and the ability to express the government’s cash position at any time. Also, the Treasury’s strengthened capacity to produce fiscal reports and annual accounts is helping increase fiscal transparency; (3) the Banking Supervision Department of the Central Bank of Tunisia developed various elements of risk-based supervision, including a prudential quarterly report for banks, new risk-based reporting templates and strengthening the process, a new bank rating system and drafting some modules/procedural notes for various elements of the onsite inspection process; and (4) staff of the Central Bank of Jordan built a new Forecasting and Policy Analysis System based on a macroeconomic model of the Jordanian economy, one useful for analyzing business cycle dynamics. Technical assistance focused on strengthening technical and programming skills necessary for developing and operating macroeconomic models in the IRIS/Matlab software environment.

• Proactive disclosure