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QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER
November 2024 – January 2025
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AFRITAC East (AFE) is part of the IMF’s global network of Regional Capacity Development Centers. This quarterly newsletter covers highlights of the support provided to member countries over the period November 2024 – January 2025.
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Welcome to this edition of the newsletter; below are highlights of AFE’s activities in the third quarter of the financial year 2025.
(From left) BOT Governor Tutuba, IMF African Dept. Director Selassie, Finance Minister Nchemba, AFE Director Mira, and Tanzania's IMF Rep. Acevedo.
From January 20-24, 2025, IMF Resident Representatives and Center Directors from the region gathered in Dar es Salaam. The event featured a courtesy visit from Tanzania’s Minister of Finance, Honourable. Dr. Mwigulu Nchemba, and the Central Bank of Tanzania Governor, Mr. Emmanuel Tutuba.
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Director Selassie meets with AFE staff at their office
Mr. Abebe Selassie, the Director of the IMF’s African Department, visited the AFE offices and discussed with AFE staff the key priorities for the region and the work of the Center. He was accompanied by team members from the Communications department.
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AFE published its FY 2025 Mid-Year Report and Informational Annexes in December 2024. The report recaps the key outcomes of capacity development support to beneficiary institutions from May to October 2024, showing an improvement in execution rate in field person weeks, that reached 92.6 across all areas of support, higher than the 82.8 percent execution rate in H1FY 2024. Read the full report here.
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Highlights by workstream
Public Financial Management: AFE collaborated with the IMF HQ to promote PFM digital transformation and AI adoption. A workshop was held for Rwanda’s MINECOFIN staff on digitalization, using fiscal data. Additionally, an evaluation of Zanzibar's budget process was conducted to enhance resource allocation strategies.
Revenue Administration: AFE held a regional workshop on customs risk management and cybersecurity. AFE also supported Eritrea in strengthening customs enforcement and preparing for an Integrated Tax Administration System (ITAS), Kenya, on post-clearance audits and compliance risk management, and the Zanzibar Revenue Authority on Compliance Risk Management.
Tax Policy: The tax policy advisor conducted visits to Addis Ababa, Kampala, and Lilongwe to assess capacity gaps in tax policy analysis, develop work programs, deliver workshops on tax expenditure costing and financial modeling for the mining fiscal regime, enhancing the authorities' policy formulation capabilities.
Forecasting and Policy Analysis System: AFE's mission focused on developing the FPAS for the National Bank of Ethiopia and facilitating a workshop for the East Africa Community (EAC) FPAS working group, hosted by the Central Bank of Uganda. These initiatives aim to enhance forecasting capabilities, integrate climate shock risks into monetary policy, and share best practices among EAC countries.
Financial Supervision and Regulation: Training missions were conducted for the Bank of South Sudan, the Reserve Bank of Malawi, the National Bank of Rwanda, and the Insurance Regulatory Authority of Uganda. The activities aimed at strengthening the knowledge of new banking supervisors and enhancing the monitoring of market risk exposures. The training for the insurance supervisors focused on assumption setting for mortality tables and the role of the regulator.
Government Finance Statistics: Rwanda received TA support to enhance statistical capacity and promote transparent and accurate financial reporting in the region. AFE coordinated the historic merger of government finance statistics for Tanzania Mainland and Zanzibar. AFE hosted a regional workshop on essential GFS concepts.
Real Sector Statistics: Three in-country missions took place during the quarter, supporting the development of National Accounts Statistics in Malawi, Tanzania/Zanzibar, and Ethiopia.
Debt Management: AFE facilitated a climate finance workshop for East African Community delegates on green bonds and climate instruments. AFE and the World Bank partnered to enhance debt management capacity in Kenya and Rwanda. Additionally, a regional workshop improved the understanding of liability management operations, resulting in Kenya announcing its first treasury bond buyback program. AFE helped Tanzania enhance its analytical capacity to create annual borrowing plans.
Macroeconomic analysis: AFE conducted a regional training workshop on Macroeconomic Diagnostics, aiming to improve skills in assessing macroeconomic situations, focusing on fiscal and monetary policy, financial stability, exchange rates, sector vulnerabilities, and medium-term debt sustainability.
Gender, Climate, and Digitalization:
AFE hosted a regional workshop on Gender and Climate Budget Tagging, with participation from Finance and Gender ministries. The workshop explored best practices for tracking public resources aimed at promoting gender equality and addressing climate change.
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SUPPORT PROVIDED TO MEMBER COUNTRIES IN THIS QUARTER (FY 2025 WORK PROGRAMME)
Table of Contents
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UPCOMING ACTIVITIES AND REPORTS PRODUCED BY THE CENTER
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AFE Staff News
Mark Buessing-Loercks
Monetary Policy Operations, and Financial Market Infrastructure Advisor
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We welcomed Mr. Mark Buessing-Loercks, a German national, in January 2025. He brings over 20 years of professional experience in central banking, gained at the Bundesbank, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the European Central Bank (ECB), and the IMF. Before joining AFE, Mark was a Senior Team Lead Economist in the ECB's Market Operations Analysis Division. He has chaired the European System of Central Banks' Collateral Management Network, a network of ECB and national central bank collateral management experts. Mark has contributed to multiple key dossiers related to analyzing, formulating, and implementing standard- and non-standard policy measures for the Euro system monetary policy operational framework.
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Trish Chiinze
Macro-Fiscal Analysis Advisor
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We welcomed Ms. Trish Chiinze, a Zimbabwe national, in January 2025. Ms. Chiinze has about 20 years of experience in Public Finance Management. Since 2019, Ms. Chiinze has contributed to IMF capacity development missions in Sub-Saharan African countries, initially as a short-term expert, and from January 2022 as the macro-fiscal advisor of the AFS. From 2012 to 2021, Ms. Chiinze worked in various roles in the Department of Fiscal Policy and Advisory Services and the Department of Strategic Policy and Management in the Ministry of Finance of Zimbabwe. In these roles, she advised the ministry management on fiscal policy, leading the work on preparing medium-term fiscal frameworks, formulation of budget policy strategies, and macro-fiscal policy analysis. Prior to working in the Ministry of Finance, Ms. Chiinze worked for about seven years at the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.
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Amra Srdanovic
Public Financial Management Advisor
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Farewell to Ms. Amra Srdanovic, the outgoing Public Financial Management Advisor. Ms. Srdanovic, a citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, joined AFE in June 2019. Prior to joining the Center, Amra worked as the IMF Resident Public Financial Management Adviser in Bhutan. Amra has over 20 years of PFM experience providing advice to Ministries of Finance.
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Faith Mazani
Medium-Term Revenue Strategy Advisor
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Farewell to Ms. Faith Mazani, the outgoing Medium-Term Revenue Strategy Advisor. Ms. Mazani, a Zimbabwean national, was AFE's Advisor from January 2024 to January 2025. Faith joined the Center from the IMF’s headquarters, where she was a Technical Assistance Advisor. Before that, she had also been an Advisor in AFW2 and AFS. She had served as the Commissioner General of the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority.
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AFE is a collaborative venture between the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the recipient countries, and bilateral and multilateral development partners. It originated from the IMF’s response to African leaders call on the international community to increase technical assistance (TA) to Africa and focus it more sharply on capacity building. AFE provides TA and training to Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania (including Zanzibar), and Uganda.
DEVELOPMENT PARTNERS
MEMBER COUNTRIES
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