Cameroon: Requests for Three-Year Arrangements Under the Extended Credit Facility and the Extended Fund Facility-Press Release; Staff Report; Staff Statement; and Statement by the Executive Director for Cameroon
Cameroon: Requests for Three-Year Arrangements Under the Extended Credit Facility and the Extended Fund Facility-Press Release; Staff Report; Staff Statement; and Statement by the Executive Director for Cameroon

Author: International Monetary

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2021-08-10

Total Pages: 123

ISBN-13: 1513594001

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Cameroon, the largest economy in the Central African Economic and Monetary Union (CEMAC), continues to face the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the onset of the pandemic, the IMF’s Executive Board has approved two disbursements under the Rapid Credit Facility (RCF) totaling SDR 276 million, about US$ 382 million or 100 percent of Cameroon’s quota. Cameroon’s last arrangement under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) ended in September 2020, without completion of the sixth and final review. The authorities have requested new arrangements from the IMF to help maintain external sustainability, implement their ambitious reform agenda—laid out in the National Development Strategy for 2020-30 (SND30)—and catalyze financial support from other donors.

Cameroon
Cameroon

Author: International Monetary Fund. African Dept.

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2024-02-22

Total Pages: 102

ISBN-13:

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Climate change presents substantial risks for Cameroon. In addition to being the largest CEMAC economy with ample economic potential and abundant natural resources, Cameroon covers large areas of the Congo Basin rainforest, the second largest in the world. At the same time, the country is a fragile and conflict affected state (FCS), with a range of fragilities, including a high vulnerability to climate change. Climate risks are intensifying in Cameroon, with temperatures progressively rising, and a projected increase in days with heavy precipitation and higher frequency of extreme weather events, such as droughts, landslides, and floods. Climate change poses an imminent threat to livelihoods and could result in significant output losses, while worsening food insecurity and conflicts, and exacerbating poverty, inequality, and population displacements. This underscores the need to strengthen the country’s preparedness and resilience to ensure that climate change impact does not jeopardize human capital accumulation or inclusive growth.

Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC)
Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC)

Author: International Monetary Fund. African Dept.

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2021-01-22

Total Pages: 85

ISBN-13: 1513567136

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The economic shock associated with the COVID-19 pandemic is set to have long-lasting effects on the economic outlook for CEMAC. The pandemic itself seems to be now broadly under control in the region, and the policy response from national and regional authorities, supported by significant emergency financing by the Fund, helped mitigate the initial economic fallout. With lower medium-term oil prices, the outlook projects that CEMAC’s fiscal and external adjustments will be slower than previously envisaged, entailing large external financing needs (around €6.6 billion for 2021–23). Gross international reserves will now reach the equivalent of 5 months of imports by 2025 vs. 2022 pre-pandemic, while net foreign assets (NFA) will be below previous expectations. Public debt would remain at elevated levels, albeit on a declining trend after the increase in 2020. This outlook is highly uncertain and contingent on the evolution of the pandemic and its impact on oil prices. Other significant risks include: delayed implementation of the ongoing or a second phase of new Fund-supported programs, difficulties in filling large external financing needs, and a deterioration in the security situation.

Central African Economic and Monetary Community
Central African Economic and Monetary Community

Author: International Monetary Fund. African Dept.

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2023-12-21

Total Pages: 84

ISBN-13:

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The CEMAC’s recovery gained momentum in 2022, supported by higher hydrocarbon prices. The external position strengthened, with a rapid foreign reserve build-up, though still below adequate levels. The recent weakening in external buffers will require more forceful action to tighten liquidity conditions, greater compliance of member countries with foreign exchange regulations and stronger fiscal discipline. Underlying non-oil fiscal positions, however, also deteriorated, stressing the need for accelerating structural reforms, addressing recent fiscal slippages, and bringing polices back in line with Fund-supported program objectives and staff advice. This will be critical to strengthen the region’s resilience to hydrocarbon prices volatility, financial instability, entrenched inflation, tighter financial conditions, food insecurity, domestic conflicts and insecurity, and climate-related events.

Armed Conflict Survey 2022
Armed Conflict Survey 2022

Author: The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS)

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-11-18

Total Pages: 549

ISBN-13: 1000861600

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The Armed Conflict Survey 2022 provides an exhaustive review of the political, military and humanitarian dimensions of 33 active armed conflicts globally in the period from 1 March 2021 to 30 April 2022. The review is complemented by a strategic analysis of national, regional and global drivers and conflict outlooks, providing unique insights into the geopolitical and geo-economic threads linking conflicts across the world, as well as into emerging flashpoints and political risks. This edition includes a special feature on climate security given the increasingly urgent need to understand the complex interlinkages between climate change, climate vulnerability and conflict amid accelerating global warming. Reflecting the growing importance of geopolitical factors in the current global conflict landscape, The Armed Conflict Survey 2022 features the IISS Armed Conflict Global Relevance Indicator, which compares the global relevance of armed conflicts in terms of their geopolitical impact, as well as their human impact and intensity. This edition also includes maps, infographics and key statistics, as well as the accompanying Chart of Armed Conflict.

Barbados
Barbados

Author: International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2018-10-04

Total Pages: 90

ISBN-13: 1484380037

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The key objectives of the program are to restore macroeconomic and debt sustainability, address falling reserves, and increase growth. The new government, which took office in late May, has committed to fiscal consolidation and structural reform as key tools for macroeconomic adjustment.

International Monetary Fund Annual Report 2021
International Monetary Fund Annual Report 2021

Author: International Monetary Fund. Secretary's Department

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2021-10-04

Total Pages: 74

ISBN-13: 1513568817

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A recovery is underway, but the economic fallout from the global pandemic could be with us for years to come. With the crisis exacerbating prepandemic vulnerabilities, country prospects are diverging. Nearly half of emerging market and developing economies and some middle-income countries are now at risk of falling further behind, undoing much of the progress made toward achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Temporary Extensions and Modifications Of Access Limits In The Fund’s Lending Facilities
Temporary Extensions and Modifications Of Access Limits In The Fund’s Lending Facilities

Author: International Monetary Fund. Strategy, Policy, & Review Department

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2021-03-25

Total Pages: 45

ISBN-13: 1513575031

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The Fund introduced two main sets of temporary adjustments to its lending frameworks in the early months of the pandemic: (i) increases in the limits on access to its emergency financing instruments (April 2020) and (ii) increases in the annual limits on access to financing from both its general and concessional financing facilities (July 2020).

Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone

Author: International Monetary Fund. African Dept.

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2018-12-18

Total Pages: 95

ISBN-13: 148439139X

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Sierra Leone is a fragile state. Since emerging from a decade-long civil war in 2001, the country has made notable economic progress but has also suffered occasional setbacks, such as the Ebola Virus Disease epidemic of 2014. A three-year ECF arrangement was approved June 2017 to help address Sierra Leone’s macroeconomic weaknesses—in particular, low revenue, elevated inflation, high public debt, and inadequate foreign exchange reserve buffers—which had been exacerbated by the Ebola crisis and a collapse in iron ore prices (Country Report No. 17/154). However, the program went off track shortly after approval as lackluster revenue performance and expenditure overruns led to a budget cash shortfall and a growing stock of budget arrears. With the authorities unable to take corrective actions ahead of the March 2018 presidential elections the first review of the program was put on hold. Since then elections have produced a new government, marking the first change of power in ten years. This government has taken a number of corrective actions over the last six months with the aim of reviving the program engagement with the IMF.

Where Credit is Due
Where Credit is Due

Author: Gregory Smith

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021-12-01

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 019764421X

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Borrowing is a crucial source of financing for governments all over the world. If they get it wrong, then debt crises can bring progress to a halt. But if it's done right, investment happens and conditions improve. African countries are seeking calmer capital, to raise living standards and give their economies a competitive edge. The African debt landscape has changed radically in the first two decades of the twenty-first century. Since the clean slate of extensive debt relief, states have sought new borrowing opportunities from international capital markets and emerging global powers like China. The new debt composition has increased risk, exacerbated by the 2020 coronavirus pandemic: richer countries borrowed at rock-bottom interest rates, while Africa faced an expensive jump in indebtedness. The escalating debt burden has provoked calls by the G20 for suspension of debt payments. But Africa's debt today is highly complex, and owed to a wider range of lenders. A new approach is needed, and could turn crisis into opportunity. Urgent action by both lenders and borrowers can reduce risk, while carefully preserving market access; and smart deployment of private finance can provide the scale of investment needed to achieve development goals and tackle the climate emergency.