perks m ligoya : the challenge of making sound policy choices speech by dr perks m ligoya, governor of the reserve bank of malawi, at the official opening of the financial programming and polices course, lilongwe, 1 march 2010. * * * the director, macroeconomic management programme, mefmi distinguished resource persons mefmi staff course participants ladies and gentlemen it is a great pleasure and honour for me to join you on the occasion of the official opening of this regional course on financial programming and policies. allow me to begin by extending a very warm welcome to you all on behalf of the government and the people of malawi, and also on my own behalf. i wish to extend a warm welcome to the macroeconomic and financial management institute of eastern and southern africa ( mefmi ) staff and resource persons. we in malawi are most delighted to be associated with mefmi and to host one of your capacity building events once again. a special welcome to colleagues from mefmi member states. may your two week stay in malawi be both enjoyable and fruitful. let me acknowledge the presence of our regional resource persons, who have taken time off their busy schedules to assist us in this important event. i am pleased to note that the team wholly comprises experts trained by mefmi under its flagship fellowship development programme. this is an indication that mefmi ’ s capacity building efforts are now bearing fruit on a sustainable basis. we wish to commend the institute for this achievement. this course, i am informed, is designed for middle to senior level officials from the ministries of finance and economic planning and central banks. these officials provide an important technical input into macroeconomic and financial policies and are sometimes also involved in policy design and implementation. this course aims at enhancing their understanding of the design and implementation of macroeconomic and financial policies. it is most pleasing therefore to see a number of you here representing key economic and financial institutions in our region. may i urge you all to make the most of this rare opportunity. experience from the region shows a general institutional bias in skills among our economists. for example, economists in the ministries of finance tend to have a firm appreciation of fiscal issues but limited understanding of balance of payments and monetary and financial issues. similarly economists in central banks may also be weak in fiscal and national accounting. this, coupled with the weak coordination among key macroeconomic management agencies, often leads to the formulation of inconsistent macroeconomic policies, resulting in poor economic

##fmi capacity building model and we expect you to be agents of this effort. it is also our expectation that a few months down the line, mefmi will get a positive feedback from your institutions. ladies and gentlemen, i would like to wish you all a fruitful programme. while i expect you to apply yourselves with full dedication to the core business at hand, please also find time to enjoy our malawi hospitality. lilongwe and its environs has quite a lot to offer, and i hope that over the next two weeks those of you visiting malawi for the first time will be able to sample malawi ’ s social and cultural menu. without further ado, it is now my humble honour and duty to declare this workshop on financial programming and policies officially open. i thank you for your kind attention.