Following a call for tenders, the Institute has been selected by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) to manage the Bilateral Assistance and Capacity Building for Central Banks (BCC) programme in emerging and developing economies. This five-year programme builds on a longstanding experience of the Institute which has been administering technical assistance through SECO mandated contracts to central banks in developing countries for 15 years under the management of Dr Ulrich Camen, researcher at the Institute.

The new contract aims at supporting partner central banks in building the analytical and technical expertise required for the efficient conduct of monetary policy. The assistance is articulated around four axes. The first focuses on missions in the partner countries tailored to their specific needs. These missions will provide the countries with targeted assistance to enhance their conduct of policy. Examples of specific activities will include courses for research staff, strengthening of policy implementation. The experts conducting these activities will be drawn from the Institute and from its network of external specialists.

The second component of the programme is the mentoring of research activity in partner central banks. Members of the Graduate Institute’s faculty will coach economists at the central banks in identifying research projects and bringing them to completion. The third axis consists of annual conferences. One conference will be held at the Institute and focus on policy topics relevant for policy-makers in a broad range of countries. This will be completed by a regional workshop more focused on issues of particular relevance for countries in the region. The final axis provides selected researchers from the partner central banks with the opportunity to work in Geneva on specific research projects under the supervision of our faculty, and consolidate their skills by taking courses offered by the Institute. The research output of the conference and visits will be published in a series of research papers.

This programme begins this Autumn under the direction of Professor Cédric Tille, and will be conducted over a period of five years. It builds on the experience in assistance to foreign central banks accumulated over several years through activities managed by Ulrich Camen.

The programme will highlight the Institute’s role as a centre of excellence on issues pertaining to macroeconomic policy in emerging and developing countries and strengthen its partnerships with policy-making institutions. It will be conducted in close coordination with the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, and will draw on the expertise of the Swiss National Bank as well as a network of experts in multilateral organisations such as the International Monetary Fund.

This article was published in Globe N°10 | Autumn 2012.

SECO news release: SECO increases its support to developing countries’ central banks