IMF Opens Second West Africa Center to Build Capacity in Region

Goal is to help officials build skills in economic policy design, implementation

New center to focus on regional needs and priorities

Center completes IMF’s network of technical assistance centers in Africa

Offering capacity building services to six countries across western Africa, AFRITAC West II complements the region’s existing center in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, established in 2003 to serve francophone West Africa.

With the center’s opening, the IMF fulfills its commitment to extend the AFRITAC network to serve all sub-Saharan African countries—a commitment made in 2002 with the IMF Capacity Building Initiative for Africa. The initiative seeks to strengthen the capacity of African governments and institutions to design and implement sound macroeconomic policies consistent with their poverty-reducing strategies.

“This is an important day for capacity building in Africa,” IMF African Department Director Antoinette Sayeh told a gathering to mark the center’s opening in Accra on March 24.

“The IMF launched this initiative with a vision: to give all countries in sub-Saharan Africa access to an IMF regional technical assistance center,” she added, noting that this vision was a response to African heads of state, who recognized the continent would benefit from the transfer of economic skills and the opportunity to share best practices in policymaking.

The new center serves Ghana, Cabo Verde, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and The Gambia. It joins four existing centers—in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire; Libreville, Gabon; Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; and Port Louis, Mauritius. Together, the five centers cover all of sub-Saharan Africa.

Tried-and-true model

The IMF’s regional technical assistance centers are widely considered a successful model for capacity building by the international community. A key component to this success is that the technical assistance delivered through these centers is demand driven, responding to the needs of countries, and is closely connected to their poverty-reducing strategies.

Because of the centers’ close proximity to the officials they serve, the capacity building can more quickly be adapted to the beneficiary countries’ evolving needs. “The Regional Technical Assistance Center is a model that is flexible, one where we’re close to the ground,” said Luc Leruth, Center Coordinator for the latest AFRITAC.

The new center will also be able to benefit from the work that is being done at the Africa Training Institute (ATI)...