African countries trained to manage public debt using new Commonwealth system

Senior officers from Japanese and Southern Africa have obtained fingers-on coaching to deal with their general public debt applying the Commonwealth’s new credit card debt management system.

The Commonwealth Secretariat facilitated the coaching in Mozambique from 12 to 16 December in partnership with the Macroeconomic and Financial Administration Institute for Jap and Southern Africa to equip 25 officials from eight nations in recording, analysing and reporting personal debt information utilizing the new financial debt management system, Commonwealth Meridian.

Officials from ministries of finance and central banking companies benefited from a five-working day programme for transitioning to Commonwealth Meridian and uncovered how to use the world wide web-based mostly program to watch compliance with credit card debt approaches, mitigate operational challenges and uphold info integrity.

Public credit card debt

Financial debt officials from Eswatini, Kenya, Lesotho, Namibia and Tanzania – which a short while ago migrated to Commonwealth Meridian – also spoke about the gains of working with the new application and approaches to mitigate the publish-changeover problems.

Opening the training, Domingos Lambo, Long lasting Secretary of Mozambique’s Ministry Of Economy and Finance, claimed the workshop comes at a time when the world is grappling with various issues, incorporating: “These developments have heightened general public money owed in numerous establishing nations.”

He ongoing: “The awareness and competencies you attain from this instruction will support you preserve complete, precise and timely general public financial debt databases in your international locations, as this is a prerequisite for productive debt management operations.”

Speaking after the schooling, Mac Banda, Adviser at the Secretariat’s Financial debt Administration Device, reported: “The risks of unsustainable credit card debt come to be a serious challenge as income streams disappear because of to the ongoing economic slowdown and repeated local weather-associated disasters. This hampers the government’s skill to finance simple services these kinds of as health and fitness and a lot-wanted programmes to achieve enhancement objectives.”

Mac Banda added: “This teaching is the latest in a sequence of initiatives by the Secretariat to support member countries with prudent public personal debt administration. It will go a lengthy way in serving to nations around the world handle their personal debt utilizing Commonwealth Meridian, which in switch will support them relieve financial debt burdens and direct to improved specifications of living.”

Fiscal steadiness

In the course of the instruction, officials also counseled the Secretariat for aiding its member nations around the world in handling their credit card debt portfolios, which, they said, contributed to money balance.

“Using Commonwealth Meridian has been a good experience,” claimed Lihle Dlamini, Senior Finance Officer at Eswatini’s Ministry of Finance. “The aggregate functionality is these kinds of a effective new resource in Meridian that provides us the ability to crank out customized studies suited for our periodic reporting.”

From Kenya, which has been employing the Secretariat’s financial debt management system for additional than 3 decades, Senior Debt Management Officer Salim Mwabundu explained Meridian has made his operate less difficult by providing prepared-produced templates for the recording of economic devices.

In Mozambique, the place the Secretariat’s credit card debt management technique has been made use of as an integral portion of macro-financial administration and is utilized for budgeting and debt assessment, among the other items.

Antonio M. Gravata, Debt Officer from Mozambique, explained: “This teaching has been effective as we get ready to migrate to the Meridian system… The Portuguese version of Meridian will tackle a major problem we have experienced. This will also make improvements to the quality of recording and the information that can be developed.”

First formulated by the Secretariat in 1985, the technique, which is now applied by a lot more than 50 nations around the world to control a combined portfolio of USD 2.5 trillion of community debt, is a flagship element of the Commonwealth’s debt administration programme.

Media contact

• Snober Abbasi Senior Communications Officer, Communications Division, Commonwealth Secretariat
• T: +442077476168 | E-mail