chances of future growth, rather than subtracting from national saving by running public deficits. it is especially important to use the current and projected federal budget surplus to reduce the federal debt. the president ’ s budget and social security proposal would have this effect. finally, the federal reserve can continue trying, as we have been doing, to balance the risk of allowing the economy to grow too fast for its own long - run good and begin a growth - threatening acceleration of inflation against the other risk that the economy will slowdown too much in the near term and lose the benefits of healthy labor markets and sustainable growth. in short • no one knows how long the good news will last. • but there is a whole long list of actions that can be taken by workers, businesses, communities, governments, educational institutions and others that can, if taken together, increase the chances that this remarkable combination growth and low inflation will continue for a while. if we all do them together, we and our children will have a better chance of living in a world where change is normal but most of the changes are for the better.

emmanuel tumusiime - mutebile : advanced risk management and modeling for foreign exchange reserves opening remarks by prof emmanuel tumusiime - mutebile, governor of the bank of uganda, at the macroeconomic and financial management institute of eastern and southern africa ( mefmi ) regional workshop, kampala, 19 – 30 april 2010. * * * the programme officer, financial sector management mefmi distinguished resource persons workshop participants ladies and gentlemen good morning, on behalf of the bank of uganda, it is my pleasure to welcome you all to this workshop on advanced risk management and modeling for foreign exchange reserves. i wish to extend an especially warm welcome to all of the participants who have come here from outside uganda and to wish you a productive and enjoyable stay in our country. it is befitting at the start of this workshop to pay tribute to the outstanding work of mefmi in building capacity for macro - economic and financial management in eastern and southern africa. many of my staff in the bank of uganda have benefitted from mefmi ’ s programmes to the extent that the institute has made a major contribution to the building of technical capacities in the bank. an especially valuable feature of mefmi ’ s programmes is that they are designed through close collaboration with the institute ’ s members specifically to meet their requirements for capacity building. hence mefmi ’ s capacity building is genuinely demand driven ; a feature which distinguishes it from the technical assistance programmes offered by many other agencies. mefmi also provides an excellent example of the benefits to be gained from building up indigenous institutions at the regional level in africa to serve the needs of their clients and members for technical assistance, instead of relying on the traditional donors. the subject of this workshop is risk management and the modeling of risk. risk is an inherent feature of human endeavours and has been since humans first walked on the earth. for much of human history, risk was simply accepted as fate : something arbitrary and inevitable in the face of which human society was helpless. arguably, risk management began in the second half of the 17th century, when london merchants meeting in a coffee house made small contributions to a pool with which to ensure themselves against the possible loss of their vessels on the high seas, thus creating an embryonic insurance industry. subsequent efforts to understand the nature of risk, to quantify it, however imperfectly, and to manage it, using scientific theory and empirical observation, have been integral to the growth of modern economies. this is