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Africa > Madagascar, Republic of

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Cover IMF Working Papers
Building Statistical Capacity in Fragile and Conflict-Affected States
Yasmin Alem
and
Jacinta Bernadette Shirakawa
Based on internal data, this paper finds that the capacity development program of the IMF’s Statistics Department has prioritized technical assistance and training to fragile and conflict-affected states. These interventions have yielded only slightly weaker results in fragile states than in other states. However, capacity development is constantly needed to make up for the dissipation of progress resulting from insufficient resources that fragile and conflict-affected states allocate to the statistical function, inadequate inter-agency coordination, and the pervasive impact of shocks exogenous to the statistical system. Greater coordination with other capacity development providers and within the IMF can help partially overcome low absorptive capacity in fragile states. Statistical capacity development is more effective when it is tailored to countries’ level of fragility.
Keywords:
Capacity Development; Statistics; Data; Fragile States; Sta CD mission; government finance statistics manual; Sta CD delivery; Sta CD spending; World Bank methodology assessment; Income; Government finance statistics; External sector statistics; Information and data management; Middle East and Central Asia; Pacific Islands; Middle East; West Africa; Africa; Central Africa; Global
Cover Policy Papers
Fund Concessional Financial Support For Low-Income Countries—Responding To The Pandemic
International Monetary Fund
This paper proposes a package of policy reforms and a funding strategy to ensure that the Fund has the capacity to respond flexibly to LICs’ needs during the pandemic and recovery. The key policy reforms proposed include: • raising the normal annual/cumulative limits on access to PRGT resources to 145/435 percent of quota, the same thresholds for normal access in the GRA; • eliminating the hard limits on exceptional access (EA) to PRGT resources for the poorest LICs, enabling them to obtain all financing on concessional terms if the EA criteria are met; • changes to the framework for blending concessional and non-concessional resources to make it more robust and less complex; • stronger safeguards to address concerns regarding debt sustainability and capacity to repay the Fund; and • retaining zero interest rates on PRGT loans, consistent with the established rules for setting these interest rates.
Keywords:
PRGT lending; PRGT subsidization; fund financing commitment; PRGT account; PRGT resource; WB financing; COVID-19; Income; Loans; Credit; Concessional external borrowing; Global
Cover IMF How To Notes
How to Manage Value-Added Tax Refunds
Mario Pessoa
,
Andrew Okello
,
Artur Swistak
,
Muyangwa Muyangwa
,
Virginia Alonso-Albarran
, and
Vincent de Paul Koukpaizan
The value-added tax (VAT) has the potential to generate significant government revenue. Despite its intrinsic self-enforcement capacity, many tax administrations find it challenging to refund excess input credits, which is critical to a well-functioning VAT system. Improperly functioning VAT refund practices can have profound implications for fiscal policy and management, including inaccurate deficit measurement, spending overruns, poor budget credibility, impaired treasury operations, and arrears accumulation.This note addresses the following issues: (1) What are VAT refunds and why should they be managed properly? (2) What practices should be put in place (in tax policy, tax administration, budget and treasury management, debt, and fiscal statistics) to help manage key aspects of VAT refunds? For a refund mechanism to be credible, the tax administration must ensure that it is equipped with the strategies, processes, and abilities needed to identify VAT refund fraud. It must also be prepared to act quickly to combat such fraud/schemes.
Keywords:
value-added tax; refunds; VAT; management framework; VAT refund; Georgia revenue service; VAT system; Tax refunds; Tax administration core functions; Credit; Income; Global; Africa
Cover IMF Working Papers
Financial Development and Poverty Reduction: Can There Be a Benefit Without a Cost?
Sylviane Guillaumont Jeanneney
and
Mr. Kangni R Kpodar
This article investigates how financial development helps to reduce poverty directly through the McKinnon conduit effect and indirectly through economic growth. The results obtained with data for a sample of developing countries from 1966 through 2000 suggest that the poor benefit from the ability of the banking system to facilitate transactions and provide savings opportunities but to some extent fail to reap the benefit from greater availability of credit. Moreover, financial development is accompanied by financial instability, which is detrimental to the poor. Nevertheless, the benefits of financial development for the poor outweigh the cost.
Keywords:
WP; GDP; poverty gap; headcount poverty
Cover IMF Working Papers
Evaluating Alternative Approaches to Poverty Alleviation: Rice Tariffs Versus Targeted Transfers in Madagascar
Paul A. Dorosh
,
Mr. David Coady
, and
Bart Minten
This paper uses a partial equilibrium framework to evaluate the relative efficiency, distributional and revenue implications of rice tariffs and targeted transfers in Madagascar, especially in the context of identifying their respective roles for poverty alleviation. Although there are likely to be substantial efficiency gains from tariff reductions, these accrue mainly to higher income households. In addition, poor net rice sellers will lose from lower tariffs. Developing a system of well designed and implemented targeted direct transfers to poor households is thus likely to be a substantially more costeffective approach to poverty alleviation. Such an approach should be financed by switching revenue raising from rice tariffs to more efficient tax instruments. These policy conclusions are likely to be robust to the incorporation of general equilibrium considerations.
Keywords:
WP; transfer program; demand and supply
Cover IMF Working Papers
Dominance Testing of Social Sector Expenditures and Taxes in Africa
Mr. David E. Sahn
and
Mr. Stephen D. Younger
This paper examines the progressivity of social sector expenditures and taxes in eight sub-Saharan African countries. It uses dominance tests to determine whether health and education expenditures redistribute resources to the poor. The paper finds that social services are poorly targeted. Among the services examined, primary education tends to be most progressive, and university education is least progressive. The paper finds that many taxes are progressive as well as efficient, including some broad-based taxes such as the VAT and wage taxation. Taxes on kerosene and exports appear to be the only examples of regressive taxes.
Keywords:
WP; demand; tax; function estimate; Lorenz curve; Taxes; health; education; income distribution; expenditure data; government of Guinea; test result; primary education; government of Côte d'Ivoire; government of Madagascar; government Uganda; Gini coefficient; government of Tanzania; budget data; dominance result; Health care; Income; Africa
Cover IMF Working Papers
On Improving Public Expenditure Policies for the Poor: Major Informational Requirements
Mr. Nigel A Chalk
and
Mr. Ehtisham Ahmad
An improvement in the quality of public expenditures is needed in many countries, given binding macroeconomic and fiscal constraints, and poverty reduction and distributional objectives. This process involves a reassessment of methodology used for this purpose by countries and international agencies, and the data needed for improved decision making. This paper reviews methods that might be used by international agencies, such as the Fund and the Bank, jointly with a survey of data currently available, required improvements in the data currently available, and required improvements in the information base. The scope for improvements in governments' expenditure policy making is also considered.
Keywords:
WP; country; pay; government; public expenditure; aggregate expenditure ratio; expenditure data; consumption pattern; standard of living; national defense; payroll data; expenditure profile; public goods; profile of a country; country desk; government accounting system; expenditure scale; Government finance statistics; Income; Defense spending; Sub-Saharan Africa
Cover IMF Staff Papers
IMF Staff papers: Volume 16 No. 2
International Monetary Fund. Research Dept.
This paper shows how to utilize the data on trade structure to achieve the best possible estimates of the effects of price changes, given any reasonable array of elasticity estimates. The credibility of estimates of price effects depends on thorough and systematic use of these data, as well as on the statistical credentials of the elasticities assumed. The observations show that the impact of a given price change on a country's exports will be greater, the more that country's exports are concentrated in markets in which substitution elasticities are high, and vice versa, but for most countries strong correlations of this kind are not probable. The general conclusion to be drawn from the paper would seem to be that the information implicit in the base-period matrix is not enough to yield results in which a high degree of confidence can be placed. It remains essential to employ substitution elasticities that are supported by the historical record. Nevertheless, the role of trade structure is vitally important.
Keywords:
SP; investment; price change; income velocity; CFA country; credit model; balance of payments position; dinero más cuasi-dinero; Personal income; Exports; Imports; Agricultural commodities; Capital spending; Global; West Africa; Africa; South America