Background
A key requirement for managing a fixed income portfolio is to institute effective procedures to manage and hedge financial risks. Such portfolios are exposed to several risks including interest rate risks, foreign exchange risk and credit risk among others. The workshop will focus on hedging strategies against interest rate risk and will provide participants with a practical understanding of a wide range of interest rate derivatives. While many institutions do not use derivatives in-house, they allocate a portion of their reserve portfolios to external managers with the expertise and resources to implement several hedging strategies. It is pertinent that staff understand the strategies that are implemented by the external managers, especially for attribution purposes but also because ultimately, institutions strive to build internal capacity to manage more funds in house. MEFMI will conduct a workshop on financial risk management and derivatives.

Objectives
The workshop will provide participants with a practical understanding of financial risks and measures, derivatives and hedging strategies.

Course Content
The course will cover the following:
• Fundamentals of portfolio risk management.
• Financial risks and measures.
• Definition of derivatives.
• Hedging strategies and cost of hedging; and
• Operational requirements and setup.

Target Group
Portfolio managers and risk and performance analysts, internal auditors, accountants from central banks, sovereign wealth funds and deposit protection funds.