Speech

Remarks by Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva at the 10th Anniversary Conference of the IMF's Africa Training Institute

January 23, 2024

Greetings to all! Thank you for joining us as we celebrate the achievements of the past decade, and as we look to build on this success and make our cooperation even stronger. 

Africa and the world are on a journey—from a period marked by the pandemic and high inflation, to a new digital, climate-friendly economy. To get there, we must navigate high debt levels and limited policy space, and we must work together to overcome fragmentation. 

This journey will test IMF member countries in a new way, ways that require, more than ever, agile and flexible economic institutions.  

Our regional capacity development centers have been helping our member countries build these institutions—and the skills that are necessary to formulate and implement sound macroeconomic policies. 

We have done it through demand-driven technical assistance and training to members across the region, including fragile, low-, and middle-income countries. In other words, the whole range of our members there.

Our world-class experts provide depth of advice that helps our member countries safeguard macroeconomic and financial stability, promote regional economic integration, and steer economic transformation. This complements the Fund’s policy analysis and advice – as we call it surveillance –, and it also prepares the ground for effective use of IMF financing.

Our commitment to this work, and the geographical footprint of our centers, have never been greater. They are based on five continents. They are seventeen uniquely positioned centers to address country-specific, regional, and global challenges through tailored capacity development. 

The first of our centers in sub-Saharan Africa recently turned 20, and the newest ones—the Africa Training Institute, or ATI, and AFRITAC West 2—turn 10 this year. Congratulations on your 10^th anniversary!

Based in Mauritius, ATI provides training to officials from all sub-Saharan countries—more than 230 training courses to over 7,000 officials so far. And those officials then pass on the benefits to their colleagues—we are all in this journey together. 

ATI provides training in core areas such as macro-economic frameworks and forecasting, fiscal and debt sustainability, financial sector stability and development, and economic statistics.

And it has pioneered new offerings that our members need to meet new challenges, including help with gender, governance, digitalization, and climate. In fact, ATI hosts the first climate resident advisor that the Fund has placed in the field.

All of this would also not be possible without the strong support of our development partners. First and foremost, the European Union, which supports all our centers in sub-Saharan Africa. 

We appreciate contributions from many countries: Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Institutions also provide valuable support, including the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, the European Investment Bank, and the Southern African Development Community. To all of you: thank you.  

And, of course, we have important support, including financially, from the host countries (from Mauritius, Ghana, Tanzania, Cote d’Ivoire, and Gabon) and all member countries in sub-Saharan Africa who contribute to the cost of running the centers. 

This is the stamp of ownership we so much value.

These partnerships foster peer learning and strong accountability for the IMF as a capacity development provider.

Our journey is important for African nations and development partners alike. We are in this together. And economic cooperation is essential to drive our shared success. 

To reach our destination of a sustainable and inclusive world economy, we need development and prosperity in Africa. 

I look forward to doing even more together to achieve this in the next ten years—and beyond. 

Thank you.