The fourth High-Level RFA Dialogue took place in Washington, D.C. on 16 October 2019. The Dialogue, which was initiated and jointly organised by RFAs, provided an opportunity for the top officials of the participating institutions to exchange views on policy issues related to the Global Financial Safety Net (GFSN), with a focus on IMF-RFA collaboration.

Attendees included Mr Abdulrahman Al Hamidy, Director General and Chairman of the Board of the Arab Monetary Fund (AMF), Ms Fernanda Feitosa Nechio, Deputy Governor, Central Bank of Brazil representing the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA), Mr Yun Liu and Ms Chantavarn Sucharitakul, Co-chairs of the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralisation (CMIM), Mr Toshinori Doi, Director of the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO), Mr Andrey Shirokov, Managing Director of the Eurasian Fund for Stabilization and Development (EFSD), Mr Declan Costello, Deputy Director-General for the Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs of the European Commission, Mr Klaus Regling, Managing Director of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), and Mr Carlos Giraldo, Chief Economist of the Latin American Reserve Fund (FLAR). Mr Guillaume Chabert and Mr Boosung Kang, co-chairs of the G20 International Financial Architecture Working Group and Mr Martin Mühleisen, Director of the IMF Strategy, Policy and Review Department participated as guest institutions. Ms Kristalina Georgieva, IMF Managing Director, made a short intervention and exchanged views with the group.

The heads of RFAs reported on recent activities and trends in their respective institutions and regions since October 2018. In particular, it was noted that several RFAs have enhanced their institutional capacity and structures through significant reforms.

This year’s high-level dialogue focused on the follow-up to a joint staff paper produced last year on IMF-RFA collaboration. RFA leaders highlighted the efforts by all RFAs, with the support from IMF colleagues, to organise six workstreams on inter-institutional cooperation, covering training and capacity building, technical assistance, macroeconomic surveillance, communication strategies, lending toolkits and policies, and conditionality design. This collective exercise demonstrated once again the strong commitment of RFAs to build trust and understanding among themselves and with the IMF, and to seek best practices from each other’s experiences.

The heads of RFAs emphasised the role of technical assistance for capacity building in member states and the importance of staff training for institutional development. They especially welcomed the IMF’s recent initiative to inform RFAs about the Fund’s policy reviews in a timely manner and encouraged continued knowledge sharing among RFAs. On surveillance in peacetime, leaders agreed that analytical tools could be further developed, and encouraged the IMF and regional institutions to leverage their comparative advantages to provide a comprehensive understanding of global and regional risks.

The leaders praised recent developments in communication among RFAs, with the institutionalisation of annual RFA events. All RFAs agreed that it would be useful to strengthen communication channels with the Fund, especially in crisis times. As regards financial assistance tools and policies, the IMF’s experience and practices have been important in helping RFAs develop their own toolkits and policies. Leaders noted that regional specificities have motivated the development and adoption of tools tailored to regional needs, and future IMF-RFA co-financed programmes could leverage the diversity of instruments offered by RFAs and the IMF. Recognising the complexity of programme design, the discussions among the heads highlighted the needs to address both short-term macroeconomic stabilisation, structural reforms and longer-term development objectives. Following up on last year’s meeting in Bali, the leaders emphasised the need to collaborate with global and regional development institutions to foster economic stability and development.

RFA leaders look forward to the finalization of the deliverables of each workstream by the end of the year and reaffirmed their commitment to continued engagement among themselves and with the IMF. They also thanked AMRO, the ESM, and FLAR for the excellent organisation of this annual event.

The fourth Joint RFA Research Seminar will take place in Moscow in May 2020. The fifth High-Level RFA Dialogue will be convened at the time of the next IMF/World Bank Annual Meetings in Washington, D.C. in October 2020.

For further information, please contact:

Mr Takeharu Tominaga (Takeharu.Tominaga@amro-asia.org), Mr Gong Cheng (g.cheng@esm.europa.eu), Mr Carlos Giraldo (cgiraldo@flar.net), Mr Yisr Barnieh (financialmarkets@amfad.org.ae) and Mr Gennady Vasiliev (Vasilyev_GA@eabr.org).