The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF’s) Regional Technical Assistance Center for Southern Africa (Afritac South) is set to receive a funding boost of over €6.9-million to facilitate a further scaling up of the center’s technical assistance and training programmes in the 2014 financial year.

The Southern African Development Community recently pledged €5-million of its European Union (EU) regional funds, Germany had signed a contribution agreement for €1.9-million and the EU had pledged to contribute additional funds from its Africa, Caribbean and Pacific funds.

This followed a meeting of the center’s steering committee, which concluded that the center had achieved good progress toward its objectives for the financial year to April 30.

The center was on course to broadly double its capacity-development activities during the course of the year.

Afritac South was one of eight regional IMF technical assistance centers around the world, and offered capacity building services to member countries in its core areas of expertise, namely public financial management, revenue administration, financial sector supervision and real sector statistics.

At the conclusion of the steering committee meeting, Afritac South steering committee chairperson and deputy permanent secretary of the Ministry of Finance of Namibia I-Ben Nashandi said the centre had improved compliance with international standards and good practices in the center’s core areas of expertise.

“In addition, Afritac South continues to provide timely and relevant technical assistance and training, which helps its member countries strengthen institutions in the face of a sluggish global recovery,” he commented.

The steering committee further endorsed the center’s work programme for the 2014 financial year, which focused on the continuation of multi-year projects initiated between 2011 and 2013, as well as the initiation of new projects on medium-term fiscal frameworks and financial sector supervision.

Members of the committee underscored the importance of ownership of reform measures supported by Afritac South in achieving the medium-term objectives set out in the center’s results-based management framework.