Enhancing Public Financial Management in the Caribbean

The Enhancing Public Financial Management in the Caribbean initiative promotes improvements in public financial management capacity of target countries during a period of rising financial vulnerabilities. The initiative provides support to Caribbean countries that are facing crises and are prepared to deal with long-standing weaknesses in their fiscal and economic management through a fiscal reform program supported by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF works with governments providing short medium and long-term advice and training designed to respond by country to the precarious financial situation or the conditionalities of IMF extended fund facility arrangements. The fund supports two packages of technical assistance. The first valued at $5 Million to respond to Jamaica’s extended fund facility arrangement with the IMF which is to help support its four-year macroeconomic adjustment program to undertake necessary fiscal and economic reforms. The second valued at $10 million is to respond largely to tourism-dependent Eastern Caribbean countries undergoing deepening financial vulnerabilities and potentially subject to extended fund facility arrangements with the IMF in view of their debt burdens.

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) improved macroeconomic and public financial management in the context of rising financial vulnerabilities; and (2) increased regional cooperation/integration to foster economic growth in the Caribbean region.