Economists from central banks and other financial
institutions in West Africa are being train to reinforce their understanding on
the working of the economy. The weeklong training, organised by the West African Institute for Financial and Economic Management (WAIFEM), is to prepare the economists to appropriately intervene in any uncertain economic environment.
The regional course on the fundamentals of macroeconomic analysis started on Monday in Banjul.
Speaking on the occasion, the Director General of
WAIFEM, Prof Akpan H. Ekpo, said recent global financial crisis has raised
serious concern about the need to develop adequate manpower base among
institutions charged with managing the economy.
“It could be seen from the crisis that countries
with weak macroeconomic fundamentals were more vulnerable to the propagation of
the financial crisis,” he stated.
Prof Ekpo explained that the regional course seeks
to offer the participants with the requisite theoretical and practical
background that will broaden and deepen their knowledge and analytical skills
on macroeconomic management.
The course has been designed to cover a number of
key macroeconomic topics such as basic macroeconomic framework for policy
analysis, openness in goods and financial analysis, the balance of payment and
exchange rates, the interest rate and the exchange rate, the foreign exchange
market, introduction to financial programming, and interrelations among
macroeconomic accounts.
