) and still applies to some countries in ssa today. however, the economic situation in several ssa countries has evolved radically in the last two decades and they face very different macroeconomic challenges to those faced 20 years ago. approximately a fifth of ssa economies, comprising about 50 percent of the region ’ s gdp excluding south africa, are now described as “ frontier markets ”. the frontier markets are characterized by strong private sector led economic growth and financial sectors which are beginning to attract investment from abroad. they are starting to acquire similar economic characteristics to the emerging markets of latin america and asia. 3 the key macroeconomic challenge for these economies is no longer to restore macroeconomic stability ; many achieved this in the 1990s ( they are mature stabilizers in the ergot of the policy support instrument ). most have a good record of macroeconomic management over many years. in the years leading up to the global economic crisis, good macroeconomic management created the fiscal and macroeconomic space which enabled them to adopt countercyclical macroeconomic policies to offset the contractionary impact of the external shocks they faced as a result of the global crisis. 4 in many respects the response of some ssa economies to the global economic crisis was not very different from that of emerging market economies in other continents. the post crisis global environment will probably be more volatile than it was prior to the global crisis, as the large global imbalances unwind, exacerbating shocks to ssa ’ s external terms of trade and capital flows. the primary challenge for macroeconomic management in the frontier markets of ssa in the post crisis world will be to steer the economy with minimum volatility to prices and output in the face of domestic and external shocks emanating from nellor ( 2008 ). kasekende, brixiova and ndikumana ( 2010 ). bis central bankers ’ speeches both the supply and demand side of the economy. this has two important implications for the reform of macroeconomic management. first, macroeconomic policy must include an element of short term aggregate demand management, something which is relatively new in most ssa economies. second, it must recognize that there are multiple macroeconomic targets and hence potential tradeoffs ; output stabilization and inflation for example. how relevant are the macroeconomic conditionalities in imf programs to the challenges facing macroeconomic management in the frontier markets of ssa? arguably, all of the main quantitative targets in imf programs are deficient. fiscal targets the

and the world bank – to introduce a credit reference bureau in uganda. our development partners have helped to subsidize the credit reference bureau system in its initial phase of operation. although the services of the credit reference bureau are provided to private enterprises, driven by the profit motive, a subsidy in this case was warranted because of the social benefits which a well functioning credit reference service can generate, which exceed the private benefits accruing to individual financial institutions. nevertheless, now that the institutional framework for the credit reference service has been established, the costs of providing credit reference services will fall and hence there will be much less of a need for ongoing subsidy. in the three and a half years since compuscan commenced credit reference bureau operations in uganda, in may 2008, great progress has been achieved. all supervised financial institutions – commercial banks, credit institutions and deposit taking microfinance institutions – are participating. a total of 640, 000 financial cards have been issued to the customers of financial institutions ; these are all borrowers or prospective borrowers. nearly bis central bankers ’ speeches 50, 000 credit enquiries are made to the credit reference bureau every month. furthermore, strong safeguards have been built into the system, stipulated through regulations issued by the bank of uganda, to protect the accuracy and confidentiality of information given to the credit reference bureau and to ensure that it is only used for the purposes for which it is intended. to remain competitive, credit reference bureaux worldwide must not stand on their laurels ; they must introduce innovative services to meet the evolving needs of their clients. compuscan is currently introducing a credit scoring system which is intended to facilitate quicker and better decision making by the participating financial institutions. we are now nearing the end of the first major phase of credit reference bureau operations in uganda. looking ahead, we hope to expand the scope of coverage of the credit reference bureau to include credit providers which are not supervised financial institutions ; for example utility companies, mobile phone companies and saccos. we will also open up the market for credit reference services to competition after september 2012, when the rights of compuscan to be the sole credit reference bureau expire. competition should benefit customers of the credit reference services because of the incentives it will give service providers to reduce costs and introduce new products. i would like to commend compuscan for its achievements over the last three and a half years in successfully launching the credit reference bureau in uganda and for now introducing the credit scoring system.