impact of asymmetric shocks, and also to discover new regional markets for our exports. as you are aware, we are currently implementing the two track approach to the ecowas single monetary zone concept. the gambia, ghana, guinea, nigeria, sierra leone, and recently liberia have been working for the formation of a second monetary zone that will ultimately merge with waemu for the formation of the ecowas - wide single monetary zone. the second monetary zone project, like the single monetary zone programme was postponed a number of times due to the inability of its members to meet the macro economic convergence criteria and the structural benchmarks. at the 24th meeting of the convergence council of ministers and governors of central banks of the west african monetary zone ( wamz ), it was yet again agreed that the dateline for the single currency and monetary union in the wamz should be postponed to january 1st 2015. indeed, our economic and regional integration efforts continue to face challenges as countries struggle to meet and sustain the convergence criteria. but in spite of the adverse impacts of the global financial crisis on our economies, it is gratifying to note that member countries of the zone are making progress in containing the adverse impacts of the global crisis and stabilizing their economies to restore it to a path of stronger growth and poverty reduction. clearly, we must continue to implement sound macroeconomic policies so as to sustain progress toward convergence. we must all commit to work on the roadmap towards the introduction of the single currency, be it in the areas of harmonization of convergence criteria, or harmonization of the regulatory and supervisory framework for banking and other financial institutions, or harmonization of monetary policy frameworks, payments system infrastructure, trade liberalisation, exchange rate stabilisation, capital account liberalisation, or integration of financial markets in the zone, etc. ladies and gentlemen, i know that we can continue to count on management of waifem for building the capacity of technical staff of central banks and ministries of finance, as well as other public servants in member countries in the various areas connected to the successful implementation of the single currency framework both within the zone and indeed in ecowas. in conclusion, let me again thank the management of waifem for bringing this important course to our doorstep, and i urge you all to take time off to explore some of the tourist facilities and other landmarks that we have available. i know that you have an intensive training programme ahead of you and your desire to commence the technical

have remained well above the levels seen at the start of this year. chart 5 euro area real and nominal rates 11 / 19 source : bloomberg. so we should not hesitate to increase the volume of purchases and to spend the entire pepp envelope or more if needed. in this way, we can prevent a tightening of financing conditions which would otherwise lead to inflation remaining below our aim for longer. eventually, firm commitment to steering the euro area yield curve may allow us to slow the pace of our purchases. but in order to reach that point, we must establish the credibility of our strategy by demonstrating that unwarranted tightening will not be tolerated. 12 / 19 from policy fatalism to policy coordination we should be confident about what we can achieve. it is sometimes claimed that monetary policy may be ineffective against global disinflationary forces or can only raise inflation at the cost of intolerable side effects, and that as a result it should not push too hard to achieve its goal and instead extend its policy horizon far into the future. but counterfactual analysis shows that after the financial crisis and during the covid - 19 shock the ecb ’ s expansionary policies have been highly effective. without our policies, inflation and gdp growth would have been dramatically lower and many more people would have lost their jobs. in fact, it is failure to make full use of monetary policy in the face of falling demand and inflation expectations – rather than its supposed lack of effectiveness – that would trap us in an environment of low inflation, subdued growth and high unemployment. preserving favourable financing conditions will have a powerful effect on demand and inflation. however, given the fall of the natural rate of interest, [ 14 ] monetary policy is more effective if deployed in sync with other policies. monetary, fiscal and structural policies must reinforce each other in order to cut slack and close the gap between saving and investment. so far, europe has taken the right direction. ngeu provides us with an opportunity, for the first time ever, to achieve genuine european fiscal stabilisation backed by common debt issuance. 13 / 19 the ecb will continue net purchases under the pepp until at least the end of march 2022. moreover, we expect net purchases under our asset purchase programme to continue and policy rates to stay at present or lower levels until inflation has robustly converged to our aim and this has been consistently reflected in underlying inflation dynamics. the commitment to preserve favourable financing conditions for a lengthy period sends a clear signal