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Mr. Trevor Serge Coleridge Alleyne
and
Mr. Mumtaz Hussain
The reform of energy subsidies is an important but challenging issue for sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. There is a relatively large theoretical and empirical literature on this issue. While this paper relies on that literature, too, it tailors its discussion to SSA countries to respond to the following questions: Why it is important to reduce energy subsidies? What are the difficulties involved in energy subsidy reform? How best can a subsidy reform be implemented? This paper uses various sources of information on SSA countries: quantitative assessments, surveys, and individual (but standardized) case studies.
International Monetary Fund
This supplement presents country case studies reviewing energy subsidy reform experiences, which are the basis for the reform lessons identified in the main paper. The selection of countries for the case studies reflects the availability of data and of previously documented evidence on country-specific reforms. The 22 country case studies were also chosen to provide cases from all regions and a mix of outcomes from reform. The studies cover 19 countries, including seven from sub-Saharan Africa, two in developing Asia, three in the Middle East and North Africa, four in Latin America and the Caribbean, and three in Central and Eastern Europe and the CIS. The case studies are organized by energy product, with 14 studies of the reform of petroleum product subsidies, seven studies of the reform of electricity subsidies, and a case study of subsidy reform for coal. The larger number of studies on fuel subsidies reflects the wider availability of data and past studies for these reforms. The structure of each case study is similar, with each one providing the context of the reform and a description of the reforms; discussion of the impact of the reform on energy prices or subsidies and its success or failure; mitigating measures that were implemented in an attempt to generate public support for the reform and offset adverse effects on the poor; and, finally, identification of lessons for designing reforms.
International Monetary Fund
Economic growth has recovered, but higher food and fuel prices have sparked a sharp rise in inflation. Monetary policy has been tightened to contain core inflation and effects of the food and fuel price shocks. The government has allowed for scaling up of infrastructure investment spending. The programmed adjustment of fiscal and monetary policies will help put Uganda on a more sustainable medium-term trajectory. Eliminating tax exemptions and incentives will address the revenue gap. The planned oil revenue management framework is encouraging.
International Monetary Fund. African Dept.

Abstract

The region's prospects look strong. Growth in sub-Saharan Africa should reach 6 percent in 2007 and 6¾ percent in 2008. The economic expansion is strongest in oil exporters but cuts across all country groups. This would extend a period of very good performance. In recent years, sub-Saharan Africa has been experiencing its strongest growth and lowest inflation in over 30 years.

International Monetary Fund
Statistical data and issues are discussed in this paper. Mauritania reached the completion point under the enhanced Initiative for Heavily Indebted Poor Countries. In July 2004, a new economic team took actions to tighten fiscal and monetary policies. The authorities intend to adopt sound principles for oil revenue management and tracking (various frameworks, such as the one proposed in the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative, are under consideration). Executive Directors welcomed the authorities’ willingness to prepare for the transition to a more flexible exchange rate.
International Monetary Fund
The government of Rwanda has recognized that economic development in most areas would have to be the responsibility of the private sector (particularly since military and civil service employment would be reduced), but that the public sector could still have a role in promoting economic equality by providing a social safety net, most importantly with a solvent social security system. Before the conflict in 1994, the private sector has accounted for only about 50 percent of employment in the formal sector, excluding the civil service.
International Monetary Fund
In recent years, the IMF has released a growing number of reports and other documents covering economic and financial developments and trends in member countries. Each report, prepared by a staff team after discussions with government officials, is published at the option of the member country.
International Monetary Fund. Research Dept.
This paper explores trends in payment imbalances between 1952 and 1964. When desired reserves deviate appreciably from actual holdings, the authorities will sooner or later readjust their economic policies to reduce the magnitude of the deviation. On the assumption that the priorities given in individual countries to domestic and external objectives of economic policy and the attitudes toward the use of various policy instruments remain unchanged, desired reserves would tend to rise chiefly as a result of the increase in the size of expected payments fluctuations. International reserves of all 65 countries of the study rose over the period studied by 2.5 per cent a year. This low rate of increase reflects, however, the large reduction in US reserves. For all countries of the study excluding the United States, the reserves grew by 6.0 per cent a year. Leaving aside the loss of reserves by the United States, reserves of all countries appear, therefore, to have grown roughly in proportion to the value of trade and to the size of payments imbalances.