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International Monetary Fund. African Dept.
This paper analyzes Uganda’s Request for Disbursement Under the Rapid Credit Facility. The Ugandan economy is severely affected by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. In order to contain the impact of the pandemic, the authorities have increased health spending, strengthened social protection to the most vulnerable, and enhanced their support to the private sector. The Bank of Uganda has appropriately reduced interest rates and provided liquidity to safeguard financial stability, while maintaining exchange rate flexibility. The weakening economic conditions emanating from the Covid-19 pandemic have put significant pressures on revenue collection, expenditure, reserves and the exchange rate, creating urgent large external and fiscal financing needs. The IMF continues to monitor Uganda’s situation closely and stands ready to provide policy advice and further support as needed. The authorities have also committed to put in place targeted transparency and accountability measures to ensure the appropriate use of emergency financing. The IMF’s emergency financial support under the RCF, along with the additional donor financing it is expected to help catalyze, will help address Uganda’s urgent balance of payments and budget support needs.
International Monetary Fund. Statistics Dept.
This Technical Assistance Mission has been undertaken to support the Bank of South Sudan (BSS) in improving external sector statistics (ESS). The recommendations made during the 2018 mission for the recording of oil exports and transactions with Sudan under the Transitional Financial Agreement were implemented by the BSS. The mission worked toward enhancing the inter-agency cooperation by meeting with selected public sector bodies, providing them with an overview of the balance of payments and the data that the BSS will request from them. Before the end of the mission, requested data from one of the entities, the Civil Aviation Authority was provided. A work program was developed to conduct a visitor expenditure survey and a preliminary International Reserves and Foreign Currency Liquidity template was submitted to IMF’s Statistics Department for review. In order to support progress in the various work areas, the mission recommended a detailed one-year action plan, with the several priority recommendations carrying weight to make headway in improving ESS reliability.
International Monetary Fund. African Dept.
This 2019 Article IV Consultation discusses that Uganda has made impressive development gains and achieved the Millennium Development Goal on halving poverty ahead of schedule. However, going forward, Uganda must create over 600,000 jobs per year to keep up with its growing population, while making further progress on poverty reduction and the Sustainable Development Goals. The authorities’ development strategy centers on infrastructure and a nascent oil sector. If investments proceed as planned, growth could range between 6 and 7 percent over the next five years. It is important to adopt an effective fiscal anchor and strengthen the budget process to become more binding for fiscal outcomes. It is also recommended to support human capital development and make growth more inclusive by improving the efficiency of public services and providing adequate budget allocations for social sectors. The consultation also suggests strengthening implementation and institutions of the governance and anti-corruption framework. Ensure that the Anti-Money Laundering/Countering the Financing of Terrorism regime is brought in line with international standards.
International Monetary Fund. Statistics Dept.

Abstract

The 2018 Annual Report of the IMF Committee on Balance of Payments Statistics provides an overview of trends in global balance of payments statistics.

International Monetary Fund
liquidity in the face of increased vulnerabilities calls for enhancing the liquidity support provided through the global financial safety net (GFSN). The global economy is experiencing a period of protracted uncertainty, marked by frequent episodes of volatility. Demand for liquidity has intensified, in particular from emerging markets, which are experiencing a build-up of vulnerabilities and the depletion of their fiscal buffers. The enhanced GFSN meets only partially this higher demand for liquidity. The IMFC and G20 have called on the Fund to further strengthen the safety net. The uneven use of the Fund’s toolkit for crisis prevention suggests the need to reconsider its design. Despite a major overhaul of the Fund’s lending instruments available for precautionary financing, only a modest number of countries have used them. In particular, the lack of access to a liquidity backstop for members with strong policies—similar to the standing bilateral swap arrangements (BSAs) among central banks—limits the availability of Fund support over the whole duration of the shock during protracted periods of global uncertainty. Moreover, the need to resort to Fund financing still carries a high political cost (stigma) for some members. To enhance further the Fund’s toolkit for crisis prevention, consideration could be given to revisiting the existing toolkit and introducing new instruments. The toolkit could thus be enhanced by: establishing a new facility for precautionary financing that would provide a "standing" liquidity backstop to members with strong fundamentals and policies for use when hit by liquidity shocks; and adjusting the existing toolkit to maintain cohesion. Any change to the Fund toolkit would need to take into account the tradeoffs between reducing stigma and containing moral hazard, while simultaneously safeguarding Fund resources. A Fund policy monitoring instrument could improve the cohesion of the global safety net. As the GFSN has expanded and become more multi-layered, there is a need to improve cooperation across the different layers to unlock financing and signal commitment to reforms. Creating a policy monitoring instrument that is available to all Fund members could help in this regard. Next steps . In light of Directors’ views on these points, staff could come back with subsequent papers that lay out specific and detailed proposals for reforming the lending toolkit. While these papers focus on the GRA lending toolkit, a separate forthcoming paper will assess some aspects of the concessional lending toolkit.
International Monetary Fund. African Dept.
This 2017 Article IV Consultation highlights that Uganda’s recent economic performance has been sound, notwithstanding a slowdown in growth. Real GDP growth is estimated to have slowed to 3.9 percent in FY2016/17, reflecting domestic factors and external headwinds, including the drought in the Horn of Africa. The banking sector remains well-capitalized overall. However, elevated nonperforming loans have constrained bank lending which contributed to the growth slowdown. Food price inflation increased owing to the drought, but core inflation was 5.1 percent in May 2017, in line with the Bank of Uganda’s target. The outlook is broadly favorable. With steadfast policy implementation and assuming improved weather conditions, growth could accelerate to 5 percent in FY2017/18.
Mr. Roger Nord
and
Ms. Wenjie Chen
How does China’s new growth model affect sub-Saharan Africa? To address this question, this paper first looks at the growing ties between China and Africa; attempts to estimate more precisely the impact on growth through the trade channel; and finally draws some policy implications regarding whether this means an end of the Africa Rising narrative or merely the beginning of a new chapter.
Mr. Emre Alper
,
Ms. Wenjie Chen
,
Mr. Jemma Dridi
,
Mr. Herve Joly
, and
Mr. Fan Yang
This paper assesses the extent of economic and financial integration among the East African Community (EAC) along a number of dimensions and, where possible, whether integration has increased in the wake of the major regional integration policy milestones.
International Monetary Fund. African Dept.
The economy has performed reasonably well in a complex environment. Growth slowed marginally in FY15/16, reflecting muted sentiment in an election year and adverse global and regional developments. Growth should nudge up in FY16/17 to 5 percent, low compared to past performance and regional peers. Credit to the private sector has stalled, and non-performing loans (NPLs) have increased, also reflecting domestic government arrears. The current account deficit is fully financed. The Shilling has stabilized after a sharp depreciation in 2015, and international reserve coverage remains adequate.
Mrs. Sarwat Jahan
and
Daili Wang
The relevance of recording and assessing countries’ capital flow management measures is well-recognized, but very few studies have focused on low-income developing countries (LIDCs). A key constraint is the lack of an appropriate index to measure the openness of capital account and its change over time. This paper fills the gap by constructing a de jure index based on information contained in the IMF’s Annual Report on Exchange Arrangements and Exchange Restrictions. It provides an aggregate index to capture the overall openness of the capital account, and also provides a breakdown of openness for various subcategories of capital flows. The new database covers 164 countries with information on 12 types of asset categories over the period 1996–2013. The index provides the largest coverage of LIDCs among all existing indices and also provides granularity on openness across asset types, direction of flows and residency. The paper examines the link between de jure capital account openness with de facto capital flows and outlines potential applications of this database.