MEFMI Conducts Inaugural Retreat for Heads of Statistics Departments in the Region

Macroeconomic statistics are essential for evaluating a country’s economic performance and for making bilateral and multilateral comparisons. They also provide the framework for planning, formulating, and monitoring the implementation of economic and budgetary policies. While considerable progress has been made by MEFMI Member States in adopting the latest international manuals for compilation of macroeconomic statistics, the quality of data produced and its availability leaves a lot to be desired.

Analysis of Public Expenditure Growth on Infrastructure in Lesotho By Senei Solomon Molapo, MEFMI Programme Manager - Fiscal Policy and Financial Programming ABSTRACT

This study expanded the line of research in evaluating the effect of factors related to the growth of government expenditure on infrastructure with the use of the Engle and Granger (1987) approach using annual time series data from 1980 to 2014 in Lesotho. This approach provides a direct test of the economic theory and enables utilization of the estimated long-run parameters into the estimation of the short-run disequilibrium relation. The residual test showed that there is a stable long-run relationship among the variables. The government revenue, grants and loans play a significant role in determining growth of government spending in Lesotho. There is no evidence of association between growth of government spending on infrastructure and external reserves both in the long –run and short-run. The absence of this trade off can lead to accumulation of reserves above the optimal level. An increase in the allocation of government resources to capital expenditure will boost the country’s economic growth and development.

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Financial Programming Framework for Zimbabwe

MEFMI conducted a follow-up in-country workshop on the Financial Programming Framework (FPF) for Zimbabwe, from 5 - 9 June 2017. This was conducted at the Kadoma Hotel and Conference Center, Kadoma, Zimbabwe. Building on the successes of interventions through implementation of demand-driven, tailor-made country specific capacity building activities initiated in Phase IV (2012-2016) has been a success story which saw the development of tangible capacity tools and frameworks across MEFMI client institutions. The experience in Phase IV showed that more proactive countries have benefitted the most from these in-country activities. In Phase V (2017-2021), the Institute will continue to broaden the delivery of more country specific activities by ring-fencing resources to meet the needs of Member Countries and Institutions. Furthermore, MEFMI will make efforts to proactively address institutional capacity challenges which are known to exist in client institutions so as to achieve equitable benefits for all the countries.

PRESS RELEASE: MEFMI REGION CENTRAL BANKS GOVERNORS’ FORUM TO BE HELD AT THE BIS IN SWITZERLAND

The annual Forum for Central Banks Govenors from the MEFMI region will this year be held at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basel, Switzerland. The Forum will be held on 23 June 2017, back to back with the BIS annual meetings.

The Govenors’ Forum whose theme is Responsible Development Financing is one of the Executive Fora activities on MEFMI’s annual calendar of events. The aim of the Governors Forum is to assist policy makers in developing and sustaining a crop of more informed decision makers in the region.

INVITATION TO TENDER FOR THE SUPPLY OF CALENDARS AND EXECUTIVE NOTE BOOKS FOR 2018

Tenders are invited from registered companies to supply tent calendars and or executive note books for the year 2018, order renewable up to 2020.
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AUDITING PUBLIC DEBT CRUCIAL IN ENSURING TRANSPARENCY & ACCOUNTABILITY IN USE OF BORROWED FUNDS

As part of efforts to enhance capacity for effective public debt management and related activities, MEFMI continues to design interventions that address the needs of its member countries. One of these areas is Public Debt Audit. Sound practice requires that governments should conduct financial, compliance and performance audits of debt management operations regularly as well as publish external audit reports. This is aimed at enhancing transparency and accountability for public debt operations. In addition, audits help in ensuring reliability and integrity of financial and operational information as well as promoting compliance with debt management objectives, governing laws and regulatory frameworks. However, most of the audit offices in the MEFMI region do not have capacity to undertake performance audits of public debt operations.

PRESS STATEMENT: DEPUTY GOVERNORS AND DEPUTY PERMANENT SECRETARIES FORUM

The Governor of Banco De Moçambique, Mr. Rogerio Lucas Zandamela will officially open the biennial forum for Deputy Governors of Central Banks and Deputy Principal Secretaries of Ministries of Finance in the MEFMI region. The event, which is being partially financed by Crown Agents Investment Management (CAIM), will be held at the Avenida Hotel in Maputo, Mocambique on Monday 8 and Tuesday 9 May 2017. Also to attend the event is the MEFMI Executive Director, Dr. Caleb M. Fundanga. Please click here for the press statement

MEFMI CONDUCTS A REGIONAL WORKSHOP ON GENDER-RESPONSIVE ECONOMIC POLICY MANAGEMENT

Gender is a socially and culturally defined set of economic and political roles, responsibilities, rights, entitlements and obligations, as well as privileges and assumptions, associated with being female and male. The current gender emphasis on women is, however, to take account of the widely held view that women and girls have been prejudiced and disadvantaged for too long, compared to their male counterparts. There is, therefore, need to take deliberate actions to correct past injustices and discrimination, in order to bring women and the girl child to equality with men. Click here for the full article.