Den Internationale Valutafond, IMF, og Bank of Algeria indleder torsdag et todages seminar om, hvordan makroøkonomisk politik og finanssystemer kan støtte de udfordringer, som resurserige lande står overfor.
WASINGTHON, 2 November 2010: Despite their abundance in natural resources many countries, including several sub-Saharan African countries show a record of relatively poor economic performance compared to non-resource rich countries.
The consensus in academic as well as policy circles is that the presence of natural resources in a country poses a number of challenges—long recognized ones such as loss of competitiveness, and a weakening of institutional arrangements, as well as newer ones such as confronting macro-economic volatility and maintaining financial stability.
The jury is still out on how macroeconomic policies and financial systems should be tailored to assist resource-rich countries in addressing these challenges. The relevance of addressing these issues in a high level seminar (HLS) is further demonstrated by the growing number of countries—such as Ghana, Uganda and Angola in Africa—that recently discovered new oil and gas fields.
The objective of this HLS would be, starting from a diagnosis of the challenges to macroeconomic management and financial sector policies in resource rich countries, to propose implementable, context-specific solutions with a focus on Africa. The seminar would be organized around three themes.
First, it would focus on the macroeconomic policies to address the challenges that the existence of natural resources poses. Participants will reflect on the historical developments and future prospects of international commodity markets (in a context of the global fight against climate change), consider the wisdom of using fiscal institutions to avoid overspending during good times, and examine the role that monetary and exchange regimes could play in limiting the volatility pertaining to international commodity prices.
Second, participants would discuss the role the financial system could play in supporting the economic diversification efforts and address the interaction between financial wealth management and macroeconomic volatility.
Finally, participants would build on success stories, comparing experiences across regions and discussing the political economy of reforms in context of weak institutional conditions, where rent seeking behavior operates.
