Partnership with IMF GFS: Together We Strengthen Capacity Development of Finance Officials
In 2016 our longstanding partnership with the IMF through Fiscal Affairs Department (FAD) was further strengthened by partnering with IMF’s Government Finance Statistics (GFS) Department that placed at the CEF their GFS Resident Advisor. Louis Marc Ducharme, Director of Government Finance Statistics Department at the International Monetary Fund about our mutual cooperation:
“An IMF GFS Resident Advisor has been based at the CEF since September 2016. With financial support from Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), the Resident Advisor is working in cooperation with the CEF, Eurostat, the World Bank, and UNCTAD to provide technical assistance and training to build capacity and improve GFS and related macroeconomic data in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia and Serbia. The Resident Advisor is stationed at the CEF for the duration of the project, and can therefore support participating countries directly in the region. He advises compilers in various national institutions on how to further develop GFS data and data reporting in compliance with international fiscal reporting requirements.
The cooperation of the IMF Statistics Department (STA) with the CEF demonstrates the value of blending on-the-ground technical advice with the regionally-based learning opportunities delivered at the CEF. In our collaboration, the CEF and STA have joined hands in contributing to each other’s work programs, for the benefit of countries in the region. Concrete examples are the CEF’s role in enhancing the annual GFS project workshops with its progressive approach to facilitate the learning experience; and the Resident Advisor delivering lectures on GFS and fiscal accounting during CEF-organized workshops. We look forward to continuing strengthening this relationship going forward and exploring ways to deepen our shared capacity development vision.”