MEFMI provides training on the Financial Programming and Policy (FPP) Framework

MEFMI provided technical training assistance on the Financial Programming and Policy (FPP) Framework for the Ministry of Finance of Eswatini, from 11 to 22 September 2023. The training was designed to cover the principal features of the 4 main macroeconomic accounts and the interrelations between them.

For each account, the training presented the accounting framework and its basic analysis, including the interpretations of variables and indicators. It assisted participants in formulating a baseline scenario and design a financial program for statistical, as well as economic analysis and management. It also widened their understanding of macroeconomic and financial policies by formulating a policy scenario. Specific macroeconomic and structural policies were discussed in a framework emphasising the complementarity of stabilisation policies and structural reforms, as well as the importance of policy coordination for sustained economic stability. Well-designed MEFMI fictitious data was used to illustrate how policies can be adapted to address changing economic conditions in a financial program and the flow of funds was constructed.

The FPP Framework has been a tool used, amongst others, to respond to economic vulnerabilities and risks under a baseline scenario and policy measures, as well as to address them. It also allows a consistent adjustment scenario which reflects these policy measures and their macro impacts and identifies further policy goals and measures beyond the one-year horizon that will be incorporated into a medium-term framework. For most MEFMI member countries, analysis of the economic and financial developments of a country using historical data has become a huge task. In recent years, MEFMI has received numerous capacity-building requests from member countries in this area. Among other factors, the identified capacity gaps have been due to high staff turnover, new developments in the area and revisions of manuals guiding the four (4) main macroeconomic accounts (National Accounts, Statement of Government Operations, Balance of Payment, and Depository Corporation Survey). As a result, there is a need to build capacity for officials in the region to be able to produce consistent medium projections of the real, external, fiscal, and monetary sectors under the assumption of unchanged policies and have feedback to inform policy.

The workshop was officially opened by Ms. Nombuso Tsabedze, an Acting Director in the Ministry of Finance of Eswatini. She started by welcoming everybody to the workshop and went on to make a special welcome to the resource persons and MEFMI Secretariat staff to Eswatini. Ms. Tsabedze stressed her appreciation to MEFMI in that particular event and many others including modelling and forecasting, as well as macroeconomic diagnostics, where MEFMI had been of assistance to the Ministry of Finance of Eswatini. She provided a brief overview of the performance of the Eswatini economy, the potential, successes and threats. She went on to encourage the participants to emerge out of the programme equipped to perform better, and ready to assume the role of trainers in FPP. She also noted that the course programme was designed such that at the end of it, the country would have a special cadre of professionals that will be of use and assistance not just in Eswatini alone, but in the region at large.

MEFMI trained seventeen (17) participants from three (3) institutions namely, the Ministry of Finance of Eswatini (10), Central Bank of Eswatini (6) and Eswatini Revenue Authority (1). Of the 17 participants, twelve (12) of them (47 percent) were male while nine (9) of them (53 percent) were female. This suggests fairly balanced gender composition in Eswatini. The training was facilitated by two (2) resource persons, Mr. Chathebert Mudhunguyo, a Deputy Director – Fiscal Policy and Advisory Services Department, Ministry of Finance Zimbabwe; as well as Mr. Senei Molapo, a MEFMI Graduate Fellow and MEFMI Programme Manager.

Prepared by Senei Molapo