Debt Strategy

Research, Analysis and Advocacy

• 8 October - Low-Income Country Ministers Meet at BWI Annual Meetings, Ministers called for acceleration of remaining HIPC relief, automatic cancellation of debts for any country hit by major natural disasters, and presentation of proposals for a more comprehensive, transparent and impartial debt relief process to the next G20 meetings. They also stressed the need for urgent action to mobilise more innovative financing, especially financial sector taxes, and to improve low-income country representation in the G20. For the full communiqué, click here.
• 7-8 October - Commonwealth Debt Sustainability Forum/Commonwealth Finance Ministers Meeting. Commonwealth Finance Ministers produced a communiqué advocating further work to develop effective crisis response facilities and debt relief proposals for small and vulnerable countries. DFI wrote the background study on options to reduce the debt burden of SVEs, and made major inputs into supporting analysis of debt sustainability for low-income countries.
• 2 September - Call for Debt Cancellation for Pakistan. Global charities and campaigners are calling for cancellation of Pakistan's debt claiming that all repayments should be frozen and resources directed to recovery in light of the recent floods. More details in the Jubilee Debt Campaign press release and dedicated webpage. See also press coverage in the Guardian.
• 26 July - IMF Cancels Haiti Debt, A total of US$268 million owed by Haiti will be cancelled under the new Post-Catastrophe Debt Relief Trust Fund (more details here) set up by the IMF to assist very poor, highly indebted countries hit by natural disasters. Haiti will also receive a US$ 60 million loan under the Extended Credit Facility over 3 years with zero interest rate until end-2011, and will benefit from a technical assistance package aimed at encouraging private credit and investment. For the IMF press release, click here.
• 29 June-1 July - HIPC Progress. Democratic Republic of Congo and Liberia reached completion points, receiving US$12.3 and US$4.6 billion of relief respectively. For analysis, read IMF press releases for DRC and Liberia; and an independent viewpoint at Jubilee Debt Campaign on DRC and Liberia. Comoros also reached its decision point on the way to receiving US$144.8 million in relief: more information here.

Capacity Building Events

• 9-17 August - East Timor Financing Policy Advice and Capacity Building Mission. This mission provided urgent advice to the Government on financing its development and building capacity for managing development financing. Based on its results, the Government has contracted DFI to design a policy for financing its National Development Plan and to provide institutional and capacity-building support in establishing a Debt Management Unit in the Finance Ministry.
• July-October - CBP Partner events: Cameroon, Haiti, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Tanzania. During this period DFI’s partners BCEAO/BEAC Pôle-Dette, CEMLA, MEFMI and WAIFEM organised debt strategy capacity building missions and workshops in several member states. A DFI consultant participated in the Mozambique and Tanzania events.
• July-October - World Bank DMF Events. DFI and its partners participated in World Bank Debt Management Facility missions to Bangladesh, Congo Republic, Ghana, Malawi, Nicaragua and Togo during this period. These included missions to assess debt management performance using the DeMPA tool, to help design debt management reform programmes, and to help countries design medium-term debt strategies using the MTDS tool.

Foreign Private Capital

Research, Analysis and Advocacy

• 28 October - Low-Income Countries, the G20 and Global Financial Regulation. DFI has been funded by Connect US to partner with the African Economic Research Consortium, Brookings Institution, New Rules for Global Finance and the University of Missouri/Kansas City to ensure that low-income and African countries' voices are heard in the G20, US administration and Financial Stability Board on how global financial regulation can best promote their development. The project will involve a combination of research, analysis and advocacy during 2010-11. The project was discussed preliminarily at a seminar at the BWI Annual Meetings on 9 October. More details here.
• 23-24 October - AfDB Reports on FDI for Infrastructure and African Stock Markets. The African Development Bank has produced two new reports highlighting opportunities from investing in Africa’s infrastructure, and the recovery of African stock markets from the global crisis.
• 14 October - FDI Stagnates in 2010 (UNCTAD). Global investment Trends Monitor #4 finds that global FDI has stagnated in 2010 after slow recovery in 2009, and does not appear to be filling the gap created by reduced stimulus packages. Prospects for a sustained recovery in FDI remain uncertain.
• 8 October – Vulnerability of Banks Rises, Credit Rating Agencies Need to Improve (IMF). The latest IMF Global Financial Stability Report finds that banks are increasingly vulnerable due to their protracted inability to roll over or obtain new funding, and that credit rating agencies need to improve the quality and stability of their analysis to avoid exacerbating instability.
• 2 September - IMF / FSB: Closing Data Gaps. In response to the global crisis, IMF and FSB have made several recommendations (see more) related to FPC monitoring. These include more effective capturing and monitoring of risk in the financial sector; financial linkages of systemically important financial institutions; cross-border banking flows; investment positions and exposures; vulnerability of domestic economies to shocks; and effective communication of official statistics to enhance awareness of available data for policy purposes.

Capacity Building Events

• 19 October - 9 July - Benin and Senegal Release FPC Results. The comprehensive reports on Benin and Senegal are now available on country websites and via the FPC website. DFI has also been providing comprehensive inputs and comments to Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Niger and Togo to finalise their analytical reports.
• 16 and 18 October - Nicaragua and Bolivia Release FPC Data/Reports. Bolivia has released quarterly FPC data for Q1 2010 and a time series for 2003-2009, and Nicaragua quarterly private sector debt data from 2007-9.
• 4-15 October - Attachment of MEFMI Fellow. A MEFMI Fellow from Bank of Zambia was attached to DFI to analyse the determinants of FDI to the mining and non-mining sectors in Zambia and the resulting policy implications. The Fellow completed a large part of his work programme and is expected to produce his final report by year-end.
• 6 October - FPC Country Profiles Launched. DFI has prepared a set of country profiles for countries which have participated in the FPC CBP, showing the latest trends in FPC, the capacity-building support countries have received and its results, and future priorities. They can be downloaded here.
• 5 October - Gambia Achieves Timely Quarterly BoP Data. The Central Bank has published quarterly BoP data online covering Q2 2009 to Q2 2010, and therefore matching the GDDS timeliness guideline by being published within 6 months.
• 30-31 August - Uganda and Zambia Private Investment online. Uganda and Zambia have both posted data and analytical reports for their 2009 Private Sector Investment Surveys, covering data for 2007-8. Both track the impact of the global economic crisis on investors’ attitudes as well as current flows and the medium-term outlook.
• 27 July - New Analysis on DFI Website FPC Pages. Recent findings from syntheses analysis of 22 countries have been posted on the DFI website, disaggregating trends into scale and composition, and sources and destinations; and simplifying the presentation of investment climate issues. To download the complete synthesis analysis click here.
• 22 July - Gambia and Ghana Analysis of FPC. Latest analytical reports are available. The Gambia report tracks the unfolding impact of the global economic crisis on dynamic sectors including finance, real estate and tourism. The Ghana report describes the results of its pilot survey, and finds FDI and other investment much higher than previous estimates.

Public Sector Financing

Research, Analysis and Advocacy

• 28 October - UN International Development Cooperation Report. The UN has produced the first International Development Cooperation Report, an independently authored analysis of trends in aid quantity and quality, mutual accountability and transparency, South-South cooperation, policy coherence for development and the need to reform the global development cooperation architecture. The report, which was commissioned from DFI by UNDESA, was preliminarily launched at a side-event of the MDG Summit on September 21, of which the summary is now available online.
• 6 October - Analysis of Multilateral Institution Performance. The UK Department for International Development asked DFI to survey developing country views of multilateral institutions' performance, to help it decide where to allocate funds. The March report interviewed 30 policymakers, and the September report was based on 33 countries' evaluations of institution performance. They complement country views on the IMF and World Bank, assembled for the G20 in Freetown and London.
• July-October - Multilateral/CSO Use of Guide to Donors Increases Sharply. In the third quarter of 2010 multilateral organisations and CSOs increasingly used the analysis and scores in the Guide to Donors. The OECD used it for profiles of non-DAC donors; the UN Development Cooperation Forum for its International Development Cooperation Report; and Action Aid Italy, the Bretton Woods Project and Publish What You Fund for analysis of donor performance.
• 11 October - Impact of the Financial Crisis on MDG Spending. DFI continues to report to various organisations on the impact of the global financial crisis on low-income countries' budgets and spending to reach the Millennium Development Goals. The latest report to Oxfam and related press coverage are available online, and a report to UNESCO as well as country case studies will shortly be available. The reports were presented on 8 October and 11 October at seminars in the BWI Annual Meetings and UNICEF.
• 16 August - African Caucus Report on World Bank CPIA, Freetown. At the request of the Government of Sierra Leone, Development Finance International commissioned Nancy Alexander, Director of the Economic Governance Programme at the Heinrich Boell Foundation in Washington, to analyse how to improve the World Bank resource allocation system to benefit African countries. The report resulted in the creation of an African Task Force on the CPIA. The declaration of the African Caucus meeting is available here.
• 12 July - UN Development Cooperation Forum Ministerial Meeting, New York. This forum analysed trends in aid quantity, effectiveness and allocation; accountability and transparency; South-South and decentralized cooperation; the impact of food, financial and climate crises on aid; and an agenda to improve aid beyond 2010. DFI contributed to drafting the UN Secretary-General's report to the meeting, which can be seen here. The results of the meeting will feed into the process of negotiating the September MDG Summit outcome document, as well as into the UN International Development Cooperation Report which will be published in September.

Capacity Building Events

• 20 October - Rwanda External Resources Mobilisation Strategy. A DFI associate began assisting the Government of Rwanda to design this strategy, financed by UNDP, which will assist in targeting exactly which financial resources to prioritise in order to fill financing gaps in the EDPRS and to implement the Rwanda Aid Policy.
• 21-23 September - Uganda Partnership Policy. This mission conducted high-level consultations to move Uganda's Partnership Policy (which covers management of aid and wider aspects of the global partnership for development) forward. As a result of the mission, a final policy will be agreed in December and initial monitoring of performance conducted in Q1 2011.
• 19 July - 6 August -Tanzania Aid Procedures Manual. A DFI consultant assisted the Government of Tanzania to finalise an aid management procedures manual, financed by UNDP. This was the second of two missions, and allowed stakeholders to comment on the draft manual and the consultant to finalise it.
• 16 August - 3 September - Guinea Aid and Auditing Capacity Building Support Missions. The Republic of Guinea, financed by the African Development Bank, has contracted DFI to conduct a national capacity building programme in aid management, and audit and control. The first evaluation mission evaluated Guinea's regulatory, legal, institutional and operational framework and designed a full implementation schedule for the remainder of the programme.

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