Over the period 2001–2004, Sierra Leone was a major recipient of MFD Technical Assistance, generally among the 10 countries in the world receiving the most assistance. This involvement represented a substantial contribution by the IMF towards the reconstruction of the country after the devastating civil war that ended in 2000.

This paper is the third to be issued under the Fund's Technical Assistance Evaluation Program, which was launched in FY 2003. It reports on the findings of five completed evaluations, and updates the program of evaluations for FY 2007–2009. The completed evaluations featured in this paper are: (i) an evaluation of technical assistance provided by the Legal Department to Indonesia related to the strengthening of the commercial courts and the implementation of the bankruptcy law; and (ii) evaluations of technical assistance delivered by the Monetary and Financial Systems Department to Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo to strengthen capacity in the financial sector.

The Kyrgyz Republic -- Joint Economic Assessment: Reconciliation, Recovery and Reconstruction; Prepared by the Asian Development Bank, International Monetary Fund, and The World Bank; With the participation of Eurasian Development Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, European Commission, International Finance Corporation, and The United Nations

This paper explains Sierra Leone’s completion point under the Enhanced Initiative for Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) and debt relief under the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI). With enhanced HIPC and MDRI assistance, Sierra Leone will achieve a debt profile below the HIPC threshold. Assurances have been obtained regarding participation in the enhanced HIPC Initiative from creditors representing more than 81 percent of the relief to be provided. The sensitivity analysis shows that Sierra Leone’s external debt sustainability could be jeopardized by adverse shocks and financing on nonconcessional terms.

In the wake of the global financial crisis, there has been a worldwide search for alternative investment opportunities, away from advanced markets. The African continent is now one of the fastest-growing economic regions in the world and represents a viable destination for foreign direct and portfolio investment. This book, which is the first comprehensive analysis of financial integration and regulation in Africa, fills a huge gap in the literature on financial regulation and would constitute an invaluable source of information to policy makers, investors, researchers and students of financial regulation from an emerging and frontier markets perspective. It considers how financial integration can facilitate African financial markets to achieve their full potential and provides a comparative study with the EU framework for financial integration and regulation. It assesses the implementation of effective and regional domestic infrastructures and how these can be adapted to suit the African context. The book also provides an assessment of government policies towards the integration of financial regulation in keeping with the regional agenda of the African Union (AU) and the African Economic Community (AEC).

African countries need to improve the performance of their public sectors if they are going to achieve their goals of growth, poverty reduction, and the provision of better services for their citizens. Between 1995 and 2004, the Bank provided some $9 billion in lending and close to $900 million in grants and administrative budget to support public sector capacity building in Africa. This evaluation assesses Bank support for public sector capacity building in Africa over these past 10 years. It is based on six country studies, assessments of country strategies and operations across the Region, and review of the work of the World Bank Institute, the Institutional Development Fund, and the Bank-supported African Capacity Building Foundation.