The one-week synergy supported by the West African Institute for Financial and Economic Management (Waifem), in collaboration with African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) was held from 23 June to 1 July in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
At the end of the training, participants issued a joint communiqué stressing among other things the need for continuity of such training programmes, partnership with journalists and analysts towards the attainment of economic growth and development in member states.
The communiqué further stated: “Governments in the sub-region and development partners should collaborates with Waifem to help in the mandate of the organisation especially in the step of capacitating journalists as we have a great role to play in reporting and analysing economic and financial issues. The training programme should be done regularly at least once a year. A monitoring group can be set to have continuance in networking with the participants to ensure and assess the impact of the training. The group can also serve as a resource centre for the trained analysts in accessing Waifem. There should be an improvement in the group work. More practical group work should be implemented in forthcoming workshops or trainings. The central banks in the region should collaborate with Waifem to facilitate the training of financial intelligence officers or professionals that should handle money laundering…”
The key topics covered in the workshop included: Review of macroeconomic models, design and tools of monetary policy, coordination of monetary and fiscal policy, interrelationships among macroeconomic sectors, regional economic integration: rationale, challenges and prospects, role of financial markets, fiscal policy management, the role of statistics in economic management, money laundering and financial crimes.
The workshop was attended by 36 financial and economic analysts from the Waifem member states, 22 financial journalists and the officials of central banks and government ministries in the Waifem region.
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