AfDB gives $7.5m to assist IMF’s capacity building programme in Africa
The African Development Bank (AfDB) is supporting the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) capacity building in Africa initiative with an amount of $7.5 million.
The assistance will be done through the third phase of the IMF’s Africa Regional Technical Assistance Centers (AFRITACs) Initiative which will assist recipient countries in their efforts to strengthen public finances and reducing poverty, including debt and revenue management, and tax reform.
This was made known after the two institutions signed a deal to that effect at a ceremony in Washington D.C. during the IMF’s annual meetings in Washington DC September 25, 2011.
According to the IMF, the AfDB has been supporting the AFRITACs initiative since its inception.
“The Bank contributed a total of $6 million to three AFRITACs between 2002 and 2009. This included $3 million for the first phase (2002–05), which established two pilot Centers in East and West Africa, and $3 million to cover their second phase (2006-09) as well as the establishment of AFRITAC Central,” said the Fund in a statement.
The Africa Regional Technical Assistance Centers are part of the IMF’s Africa Capacity-Building Initiative launched in May 2002 and it promotes the strengthening the capacity of African countries to design and implement their poverty-reducing strategies, as well as to improve the coordination of technical assistance.
The initiative has four centers in Africa. AFRITAC East in Tanzania which serves seven countries in East Africa; AFRITAC West in Mali serving 10 countries in Francophone West Africa; AFRITAC Central in Gabon, also serving nine countries in Central Africa and AFRITAC South which started operations in June 2011 in Mauritius covers 13 countries in Southern Africa and the Indian Ocean.
Work is in progress to open a regional center in Ghana to cover non-Francophone countries in West Africa (AFRITAC West 2), which will complete coverage of all sub-Saharan countries through AFRITACs, says the IMF.
By Ekow Quandzie