The training organised and conducted by West African Institute for Financial and Economic Management (Waifem) in partnership with African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) is aimed at providing participants with practical overview and insight into economic and financial markets.
The regional convergence brought together participants from Waifem member central banks including The Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone and is intended to update the knowledge and upgrade the skills of financial analysts in economic and financial policies with a strong emphasis on economic and financial analysis and performance monitoring.
The training further aimed to increase the economic quotient of the attendees towards promoting a greater public awareness of the domestic and international economic and financial issues in the interest of a more enlightened electorate that will engender popular participation in the national economic and financial agenda. The training targets middle and executive level officials involved in editing, reporting and production of macro-economic and financial news in the media in the countries of Waifem member central banks.
Addressing regional delegates on behalf of the governor of the Bank of Sierra Leon, Mr Ibrahima K Lamin, the director of financial markets department at the Bank of Sierra Leone underscored the importance of the regional course on economic and financial analysis.
He described economic analysis as “a systematic approach to the determination of the optimum use of scarce resources, involving comparison of two or more alternatives in achieving specific objective under the given assumption and constraints.”
He told journalists and financial analysts that “in economic analysis the strengths and weaknesses of an economy are analysed, hence, it is important to understand the exact status and conditions of macro-economic issues as they give insight into the fundamentals of an economy”.
Speaking earlier on behalf of the director general of Nigeria-based Waifem, Ousman Sowe, a Gambian who heads Waifem’s financial sector department said Waifem was established by the central banks of The Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone in 1996 principally to build capacity for improved macro-economic and financial management in Waifem member states.
He said since its inception in 1997 to April 2014, Waifem has successfully executed 485 courses which have benefited more than 13,500 participants from the sub-region and beyond.
Mr Sowe added that Waifem has also established collaborative arrangements with world-class training organisations and capacity-building institutions to ensure best practices in the delivery of its programmes and as a centre of excellence in capacity building.
He urged the participants to avail themselves the opportunity to deepen their professional networking relationship to further the course of integration in the sub-region. The training will end tomorrow.
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