For a given country, achieving and maintaining macroeconomic stability is essential. It helps preserving national sources of wealth and establishing a suitable environment for private sector growth. Macroeconomic planning can help improve a country’s economic stability by strengthening its overall resilience in the face of adverse events. It thus contributes to avoiding excessive fiscal deficits and unsustainable debt levels.

The development objective consists for the beneficiaries to independently set consistent macroeconomic policy goals based on sound analysis and on established financial programming routines. The project will allow targeted countries to take command of the economic analysis behind the forecasting model, negotiate with third parties such as the IMF and establish a good foundation for deeper commitment to prudent macroeconomic policy management.

Development of sustainable macroeconomic forecasting models and systems.

Improvements in the exchange and consistency of data for the benefit of various stakeholders involved in macroeconomic analysis and forecasting activities.

Regular inter-agency exchange of information and cooperation with regard to macroeconomic policy formulation.

Enhancement of policy analysis based on the results provided by the developed macroeconomic forecasting models.

Expected results:  

Creation and/or improvement of financial programming models and related fiscal analysis.

Improvement of specific skills of officials in charge of macroeconomic forecasting at the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Central Bank.

Updating of the necessary economic data and establishment of a forecasting routine, macroeconomic analysis and advice.

Performance of additional analytical and policy works in the economic sectors (fiscal, monetary, others.).

Improvement in information sharing accross economic departments.

Results from previous phases:  

SECO has been providing technical assistance in macroeconomic forecasting for over a decade. A total of seven countries benefited from this intervention over three, small scale phases: Nicaragua, Paraguay, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Ghana, Vietnam and Albania. They managed to achieve good progress in designing, compiling and using their respective forecasting models for the sake of increased macroeconomic stability. An external evaluation covering all SECO-financed financial programming interventions to date found the program to have been very successful. The main findings were positive with two "highly satisfactory" in the areas of relevance and effectiveness and two "satisfactory" in the areas of efficiency and sustainability of the interventions. In its overall assessment, the evaluation team stressed the full alignment of the project with the national development priorities of the targeted countries. The quality of the issued economic forecasts was further deemed excellent.

Phase 4 31.08.2019 - 30.08.2024   (Active)