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QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER
August – October 2024
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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 August – October 2024.
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Welcome to this edition of the newsletter; below are highlights of AFE’s activities in the second quarter of the financial year 2025.
Malawi’s contribution to AFE. This quarter, Malawi signed its contribution agreement to support AFE's activities, joining Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. The IMF's Resident Representative in Malawi, Nelnan Koumtingue, met with Dr. Wilson Banda, the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Malawi, expressing the IMF's and AFE's gratitude for the support provided by the Malawian government. AFE welcomes the commitment and contributions of its member countries, which are essential for the Center's operations and success.
Meeting between the Reserve Bank of Malawi Governor and the IMF Resident Representative
Saudi Arabia’s contribution to AFE. Saudi Arabia recently became a new financing contributor to AFE, following their conclusion of the Saudi Arabia CD Partnership in an MoU with the IMF. Under their “sub-Saharan Africa Pillar,” Saudi Arabia has provided $ 2 million to the Center. AFE is very grateful for the support received from Saudi Arabia, which will go a long way in reducing financing gaps and ensuring the Center can continue its CD efforts in the region.
AFE’s Director Visit to Uganda. In October, the Center Director, Clara Mira, visited Uganda and met with the authorities to discuss past support and key priorities for the future. The Director engaged with key counterparts from the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, Bank of Uganda, Uganda Revenue Authority, and Uganda Bureau of Statistics, Steering Committee members, as well as development partners. The dialogue was very productive. AFE looks forward to continuing its collaboration with the Ugandan authorities in capacity development activities.
AFE Director Meeting with the Uganda Revenue Authority Commissioner General and his team
Spotlight: Rwanda’s Climate Progress. During the 2024 IMF Annual Meetings in Washington DC, AFE was delighted to hear about Rwanda's remarkable achievements in advancing PFM-related climate reforms, showcased by Dr. Thierry Kalisa, Chief Economist from the National Bank of Rwanda, at the High-Level Roundtable on Capacity Development in Sub-Saharan Africa. The event, chaired by the IMF First Deputy Managing Director Gita Gopinath, included leaders from the IMF's African Department and Institute for Capacity Development, representatives from Sub-Saharan African countries, and development partners. During the event, Rwanda highlighted some of the reforms accomplished with AFE's support in the PFM area, which were in line with their Resilience and Sustainability Facility. The collaboration began with support provided through the Climate Policy Implementation and Monitoring Assessment (CPIMA) and led to results such as climate tagging, integrating climate risks into fiscal planning, and developing an analytical framework for assessing specific climate change fiscal risks.
Officials’ meeting during the High-Level Roundtable on Capacity Development in Sub-Saharan Africa
Highlights by workstream
Financial Supervision and Regulation: 5 bilateral missions, 3 professional attachment programs, and a regional workshop were achieved with the Bank of Eritrea, the National Bank of Ethiopia, the Reserve Bank of Malawi, the National Bank of Rwanda, the Tanzania Insurance Regulatory Authority, the Capital Markets Authority of Uganda, and the Bank of Uganda. These initiatives focused on enhancing risk-based supervision (RBS), developing cybersecurity supervisory frameworks, and supporting the transition to Basel II/III. AFE also supported the implementation of IFRS 17, transitioning to a risk-based capital (RBC) regime, and reviewing actuarial work for insurance supervisors. An enforcement training in securities markets was also provided. Finally, a joint regional workshop on the regulation and supervision of technology-driven innovation in financial services (FinTech) brought together banking and capital markets supervisors from AFE and AFW2 member countries.
Government Finance Statistics: AFE supported Uganda, Tanzania mainland and Zanzibar, South Sudan, Eritrea, and Malawi to improve the quality of government finance statistics and public sector debt statistics.
Public Financial Management: The Malawi authorities received follow-up support to enhance their oversight of State-Owned Enterprises. Rwanda was assisted in implementing climate budget tagging. In Zanzibar, the authorities received follow-up support on their planned transition to accrual accounting in accordance with the International Public Sector Accounting Standards. Uganda received support to strengthen and expand the Treasury Single Account and further improve cash management practices.
Real Sector Statistics: 3 in-country missions were conducted during the Quarter. 2 missions focused on the development of National Accounts Statistics in Rwanda and Uganda, while the third mission concentrated on developing price statistics, specifically the Producer Price Index in Rwanda. Additionally, a one-week regional workshop on price statistics was held in Gisenyi, Rwanda, with 16 participants from the eight AFE member countries in attendance.
Revenue Administration: The Center assisted Eritrea in modernizing its customs processes for sustainable growth, where the Inland Revenue Department got support to enhance taxpayer services. A TADAT assessment was conducted for the Ministry of Revenues in Ethiopia to support reforms under the National Medium-term Revenue Strategy. In Malawi, auditors received training in the specialized audit of the telecommunications sector, while the Rwanda Revenue Authority enhanced the use of AI for detecting tax data anomalies. The Malawi Revenue Authority also benchmarked its practices against the Zambia Revenue Authority in tax investigations operations. The Centre hosted a regional workshop on compliance risk management and compliance improvement plans. A workshop on customs risk management and cybersecurity addressed challenges from increasing digital reliance, stressing the importance of a strong risk management framework to protect trade and national security.
Debt Management: AFE arranged a visit for 6 officials from Kenya's National Treasury and Central Bank to South Africa's National Treasury and Reserve Bank.
Staff News: AFE bids farewell to Matthew Quillinan, Macrofiscal Advisor, and William Wakuganda, Economist, and welcomes Archil Imnaishvili, Macroeconomic Framework Advisor; Thomas Benninger, Tax Policy Advisor; Rebecca Obare, AML/CFT advisor; and Lauren Keating, Gender Budgeting Advisor.
Regional Workshops: There were 6 regional workshops conducted during the Quarter.
Upcoming Activities and TA Dissemination: Table 1 provides an updated calendar of activities from November 2024 to January 2025. Table 2 lists TA reports disseminated.
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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
Archil Imnaishvili
Macroeconomic Framework Advisor
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Mr. Archil Imnaishvili joined AFE in August 2024 as a Macroeconomic Frameworks Advisor from the IMF’s Institute for Capacity Development. His position is financed by the Government of Japan. He has more than 15 years of experience of working in central banking. As the head of the Macroeconomics and Statistics Department at the National Bank of Georgia, Mr. Imnaishvili was a major contributor to the transformative change of the policy from monetary targeting with heavy exchange rate control to inflation targeting with flexible exchange rate regime. As part of this shift, he played an active role in the introduction of policy interest rate instrument, in the move from volume-based to price-based monetary operations, and the revamp of FX intervention mechanism; in the development of analytical and modelling capacity and the introduction of the FPAS as the framework for the decision-making process; in the reform of monetary policy communication that ensured greater transparency and predictability of monetary policy. Mr. Imnaishvili holds a master’s degree in economics from the Central European University.
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Lauren Keating
Strategic Budgeting Advisor
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Ms. Lauren Keating joined AFE as a multi-regional Gender Budgeting Advisor. This is FAD’s first fully focused gender budgeting expert working in the field on capacity development and reflects the demand for FAD’s support in integrating gender equality considerations into the budgeting and Public Financial Management systems. This position is funded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO). Ms. Keating will be working on a selected set of countries across Sub-Saharan Africa (Rwanda, Kenya, Ethiopia), as well as some countries in Europe and Central Asia.
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Tom Benninger
Tax Policy Advisor
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Mr. Tom Benninger, a Swiss national, joined AFE as a tax policy advisor in September 2024. Tom is a senior economist with the IMF’s Fiscal Affairs Department (FAD). He has been with the IMF since 2017, where his responsibilities included the lead role for the implementation of results-based management in FAD, tax policy economist with a focus on extractive industry taxation and fiscal economist on the country teams for Mauritania and the Kyrgyz Republic.
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Rebecca Obare
AML/CFT Advisor
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Mrs. Rebecca Obare joined AFE in October 2024 as an anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) regional advisor for Anglophone Africa, from the IMF Legal Department. Her move to AFE allows her to be closer to the countries in the region, and also to the Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group Secretariat. She joins from AFS, where she served as an AML/CFT regional advisor for Africa; in this role, she was responsible for providing technical assistance and overseeing Thematic Trust-funded projects on AML/CFT matters in Anglophone Sub-Saharan Africa. She has provided guidance to several countries in the region on establishing effective, risk-based AML/CFT systems.
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Matthew Quillinan
Macrofiscal Analysis Advisor
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Mr. Matthew Quillinan, an Australian citizen, was AFE’s Macrofiscal Analysis Advisor from February 2020 to October 2024. Previously, he worked in various in the Australian Treasury and Tax Office and as a resident macrofiscal advisor in the Solomon Islands, Indonesia, The Gambia, and Sierra Leone.
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William Wakuganda
Economist
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Mr. William Wakuganda, a Tanzanian national, served as AFE's economist from February 2017 to October 2024. During his tenure, he made significant contributions by supporting the Center's work and skillfully guiding AFE through several phases and the Results-Based Management process, demonstrating his expertise in the field. Additionally, he provided valuable support to three Center directors, showcasing his versatility and dedication to the Center.
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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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