Annual Report 2006
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT The Debt Management–DMFAS Programme Annual Report 2006 UNCTAD/GDS/DMFAS/2007/2 UNITED NATIONS New York and Geneva, 2008 GE.08-50371 The Debt Management–DMFAS Programme Annual Report 2006 CONTENTS OVERVIEW .............................................................................................................................. 3 1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................... 5 2. DMFAS COUNTRY PROJECT STATUS.......................................................................... 6 3. SYSTEMS............................................................................................................................ 9 4. CAPACITY-BUILDING MODULES, ANALYSIS SUPPORT AND TRAINING ........ 11 5. COLLABORATION WITH PARTNER INSTITUTIONS............................................... 13 6. DOCUMENTATION, PUBLICATIONS AND WEBSITE.............................................. 15 7. DEBTNET ......................................................................................................................... 16 8. FUNDING AND EXPENDITURES ................................................................................. 17 Annex 1 Status of DMFAS implementation......................................................................... 19 Annex 2 Operational status of DMFAS in countries............................................................ 21 Annex 3 Summary of Helpdesk enquiries by country for 2006 ........................................... 24 Annex 4 Overview of DMFAS activities from 2004 to 2006............................................... 25 Annex 5 Financial contributions 2006 and cumulative by source of funding...................... 27 Annex 6 Bilateral donors’ contributions, 1996–2006, general programme support ............ 28 Annex 7 Bilateral donors’ contributions and expenditures, 1984–2006 .............................. 29 Annex 8 Summary of yearly expenditures breakdown, 2001–2006..................................... 30 Annex 9 Expenditure for the programme’s central operations for 2006 .............................. 31 Annex 10 Country projects – funding and expenditures ........................................................ 32 Annex 11 UNDP country, regional and interregional projects............................................... 34 Annex 12 Voluntary maintenance fees (2002–2006) ............................................................. 36 Annex 13 Development contributions (2002–2006) .............................................................. 37 Annex 14 Other income..........................................................................................................38 Annex 15 Central operations source of funds for 2006.......................................................... 39 Annex 16 Bilateral donors’ contributions (disbursements) to the programme’s central operations 1998–2006 ............................................................................................ 40 Annex 17 Country information............................................................................................... 41 Page 2 Debt Management–DMFAS Programme Annual Report 2006 Overview The present report describes the activities, funding and expenditures of UNCTAD’s Debt Management–Debt Management Financial and Analysis System (DMFAS) Programme during 2006. It is intended for the programme’s donors, its development partners, its beneficiary countries and all others interested in debt and development issues. The Debt Management–DMFAS Programme is one of the world’s leading providers of technical cooperation and advisory services in the area of debt management. Integrated as a key activity of UNCTAD, the programme has been successful in helping Governments improve their capacities to manage debt for over 25 years. The programme has so far worked directly at the country level with 65 (mostly low- and lower- middle-income) countries. In 2006, it was active in 57 of these: 22 in Africa, 13 in Asia and the Near East, 15 in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 7 in Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). It is also undergoing negotiations for projects with five new countries. The need for good debt management is underlined by growing international recognition of its importance and by global initiatives such as the Monterrey Consensus and the Millennium Declaration. In particular, Goal 8 of the Millennium Declaration emphasizes the importance of, among others, debt management and debt relief for achieving poverty reduction. In this context, there is increasing awareness that good debt management is an intrinsically important component of public financial management and overall good governance. It is now generally accepted that it is essential to build national capacity in the area of debt management in order for developing countries to reach debt sustainability. Similarly, it is widely recognized that good debt management within an effective macroeconomic framework will improve overall democratic governance and lead to greater economic stability, economic growth and social development. In order to attain sustainable debt levels and to use debt instruments as an efficient tool for development, prudent debt management and the availability of reliable and timely debt data are essential. Many Governments, however, quite simply lack the appropriate human and technical capacity for handling public resources and liabilities more effectively, despite their commitment to development. This is particularly the case for developing countries and how assistance given to them through UNCTAD’s Debt Management–DMFAS Programme makes a concrete difference. The programme offers countries a set of proven solutions for improving their institutional capacity to handle the day-to-day management of public liabilities and the production of reliable debt data for policymaking purposes. This includes its specialized debt management software, the DMFAS, as well as advisory services and training activities in debt management. These products and services are continuously updated in line with countries’ new requirements and in line with best practices in debt management. In 2006, for example, in response to the increasing reliance of Governments on domestic financing, the programme started the development of a new debt securities module, which will cover domestic as well as external debt. This securities module is already an important feature of the next version of the DMFAS software. During the year, the programme was also active in enhancing the current version of the system as well as in both the development and implementation phases of its capacity- building modules in debt data validation, statistics and debt analysis. This was in addition to the ongoing training and support provided to countries during the year through the programme’s framework of technical cooperation projects. The latter included Helpdesk support made available to all 57 current active users of the DMFAS system as well as country activities in 42 of these. The programme’s activities are financed from a variety of sources, including some financing from UNCTAD’s regular budget, some cost sharing by beneficiaries, and financing for individual country projects from bilateral and multilateral donors. However, the main source of funding for the programme’s central activities comes from bilateral donors who contribute to its multi-year, multi-donor trust fund. In 2006, these included the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. In September, the programme Debt Management–DMFAS Programme Annual Report 2006 Page 3 met with these as well as potential new donors at a donor consultation meeting in Oslo to discuss the programme’s funding and strategy for the forthcoming years. At the meeting, UNCTAD’s strategic plan for DMFAS for 2007–2010 was presented. Additionally, the programme’s new Chief – who would take up his functions from November and would be responsible for spearheading the aforementioned plan – was introduced. This plan is the subject of another document. The present document looks at 2006. It is structured as follows: The Introduction presents the capacity-building approach of the programme, its activities and its products and services. The DMFAS country project status chapter gives overall country project status for 2006 and includes information on collaboration with HIPC countries. The chapter on Systems gives information on the development, distribution and operational status of DMFAS in the countries in which the software is installed, as well as information about system support and maintenance. Capacity-building modules, analysis support and training describes progress on the development of the programme’s new capacity-building modules and their implementation during the year, as well as information on debt analysis support and on how training is carried out. Collaboration with partner institutions describes the programme’s collaboration with other institutions providing technical cooperation in debt management. Documentation, publications and website lists the documents and publications that the programme produced in 2006 and information about the website. DebtNet looks at activities carried out on the e-mail-based forum on debt management during the year. Information on the Programme’s Funding and expenditures is found in the last chapter of the report. The annexes give detailed information on the