Why Public Assets are Key to Debt Sustainability: A Moral Goal

Posted by Ian Ball, Dag Detter, Yannis Manuelides, and Wang Yan^[1]

Measures of a sustainable climate or even a healthy life are well understood and universally shared. Similar tools for measuring a sustainable economy and debt levels, using standard accrual accounting and budgeting techniques have been included in IMF manuals for more than two decades. Furthermore, IMF research has shown that countries with a stronger government net worth—total assets less liabilities—experience shallower recessions and recover faster in the aftermath of economic downturns.

Surveying Macro-Fiscal Management in East and Southern Africa

Posted by Bryn Battersby and Ian Lienert^[1]

Institutional arrangements of Ministries of Finance (MoFs) can impact the effectiveness of achieving macro-fiscal objectives and longer-term fiscal stability. Our new IMF Working Paper is a cross-country study of macro-fiscal functions in selected African countries and fills an important knowledge gap. The paper draws on the results of a survey of the macro-fiscal function of 16 east and southern Africa countries. It also includes an analysis of the macro-fiscal forecasts of most of the countries in our sample.

Disclosing New “Renewable Oil” in the Government’s Balance Sheet

Posted by Alok Verma^[1]

Governments worldwide are collecting huge quantities of data on individuals, the economy, agriculture, demography, geography and natural resources, traffic, weather, climate change, gender inequalities and many other topics to support the delivery of public goods and services to citizens and monitor their impact. We are witnessing an emerging era in which data is new oil in the digital economy. The private sector has already moved fast in realizing the enormous benefits of their information assets. Many companies have appointed Chief Data Officers (CDO) who are responsible for “managing and leveraging data as an enterprise business asset and developing data strategies” to achieve organizational goals.

Public Investment Management in South Asia

Posted by Celeste Kubasta and Raju Sharan^[1]

In February 2021, a workshop on the IMF’s Public Investment Management Assessment (PIMA) tool and the new PIMA Climate Change Module was conducted virtually through the Fund’s South Asia Regional Training and Technical Assistance Center (SARTTAC).[2] The workshop brought together 66 participants from all SARTTAC member countries: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Three countries in the region, Maldives, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh, have conducted PIMA’s in 2016, 2017, and 2018, respectively.