During August to October 2024, two regional highlights were a high-level peer-to-peer event at CCAMTAC for statistics agencies with the Statistics Department of the IMF and a roundtable for senior officials from central banks, in collaboration with the Deutsche Bundesbank and the Swiss National Bank. Our bilateral technical assistance (TA) to member countries spanned a wide range of areas, including near-term macroeconomic forecasting, developing and strengthening fiscal risk statements, improving the compilation of public sector and national account statistics, enhancing financial regulation and supervision frameworks, and refining monetary policy implementation. Read more

Between May and July CCAMTAC delivered bilateral and regional capacity development (CD) services that covered again a broad range of topics, including related to macro-forecasting and analysis; fiscal risks and transparency; digitalization and machine learning in revenue administration; central bank communication; local bond market development; Fintech; corporate governance; and statistics. Two in-country macroeconomic analysis training workshops in Tajikistan (together with the Joint Vienna Institute) and in Georgia, as well as virtual webinars and research seminars complemented the work program. Read more

As a good tradition, this April high-level officials from the region and myself attended the IMF World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington, which offered an excellent opportunity to discuss economic developments and policies, but also to learn about capacity development (CD) priorities, progress, and needs. In light of continued global uncertainties, recurring topics related to sound macro-fiscal and fiscal risk analysis, the importance of scenario analysis, improving revenue administration, monetary policy transmission, supervision, quality of data, climate-related challenges and relevant IMF support in surveillance, lending and CD played a more prominent role during the panel discussions, regional, and bilateral meetings. I was very happy to hear the positive feedback from several country authorities on IMF-CCAMTAC CD service delivery. CCAMTAC’s work program in the previous and coming months covered and will cover again many of these important topics. Read more

Peer learning activities and innovations in learning modalities complemented bilateral TA. CCAMTAC and the Joint Vienna Institute (JVI) have launched a new blended cohort training program with two virtual training segments and two in-person workshops in Almaty and Vienna (forthcoming). A one-week national workshop on Financial Programming and Policies (FPP) in Ashgabat was the first in-person CD activity in Turkmenistan after the COVID-19 pandemic. CCAMTAC also hosted the first workshop ever on the IMF’s new Sovereign Risk and Debt Sustainability Framework for Market Access Countries, delivered by IMF headquarter colleagues, with participation from the World Bank. Read more

Continued innovations have aimed at increasing the impact of CD and its reach, such as smaller group peer learning events and the first in-country macro-economic analysis / financial programming training. The latter was offered together with the Joint Vienna Institute (JVI) and the Resident Representative Office in Uzbekistan, embedded in the Macroeconomic Frameworks Workstream of the IMF Institute for Capacity Development. Read more

CCAMTAC started the new financial year 2024 on a high note. In early May we hosted a presentation of the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia Department’s flagship publication “Regional Economic Outlook” in our office in Almaty. This event brought together officials, local business, and representatives from the diplomatic community, researchers, and academia. Our CCAMTAC team was thrilled to have an official opening ceremony of CCAMTAC and its office in Almaty on June 9, 2023.Read more

Since end-January CCAMTAC organized 7 regional in-person workshops in its new office, bringing some 170 officials to Almaty to complement an active program of bilateral technical assistance. Regional workshops promote peer learning and also lead to new interests in technical assistance. It was great a pleasure to see again many country authorities during the Spring Meetings in Washington DC, including to seek feedback on past delivery and discuss emerging needs. During a press conference Mr. Jihad Azour, Director of the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia Department, summarized the findings of the economic outlook for the Middle East and Central Asia Read more

CCCAMTAC’s first in-person regional workshop took place in November in our new office. The workshop focused on practical aspects of the integrated GFS framework, with twenty-seven participants from ministries of finance, central banks and national statistical institutes (see video here). Bilateral technical assistance as well as other regional virtual webinars broadly evovled in line with the workprogram. Read more

CCAMTAC’s recent capacity development activities were discussed in early November during the first hybrid Steering Committee update meeting at the margins of the second Economic Forum in Uzbekistan, Samarkand. In a gorgeous setting, opened by the Chairman of the Central Bank of Uzbekistan Mamarizo Nurmuratov, the meeting provided an excellent opportunity for several stakeholders to get together for the first time in-person. Read more

During the past three months, bilateral CD support focused on analyzing and addressing fiscal risks, including those related to climate, improving budget preparation, addressing tax compliance risk; enhancing modelling capabilities; finetuning the calculation of reserve requirements; and improving statistics. Read more...

The world economy as a whole and several countries covered by CCAMTAC in particular face immense challenges. Despite signs of improvements, the pandemic is not yet over. The war in Ukraine is leading to massive human suffering and significant economic repercussions. This geopolitical conflict and associated economic shock add multiple setbacks to a recovery, which seemed to be ongoing at a time when the policy space was already more limited: Read more...

One year passed since CCAMTAC was launched virtually, following the 2021 inaugural steering committee meeting. Many of us had expected that by now we would be back to face-to-face delivery of capacity development. Taking stock of the virtual experience so far, three main thoughts come to mind: Read more...

With all seven resident advisors on board, in cooperation with IMF headquarters and short-term experts, regional capacity development (CD) and country-specific CD across all workstreams are taking shape. This newsletter covers activities between August and October 2021 and provides in the Appendix a summary of the recent and planned CD until the end of January 2022. Read more...

I hope you enjoy reading the second update from the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Mongolia Regional Capacity Development Center (CCAMTAC), which is part of the IMF’s network of 17 such centers worldwide. This newsletter covers activities between May and July 2021 and provides in the Appendix a summary of recent and planned activities until the end of October. Read more...