COMESA Monetary Institute (CMI)
The 18th Meeting of the COMESA Committee of Governors of Central Banks which was held in Kigali, Rwanda in December 2012 instructed the COMESA Monetary Institute to undertake the following in 2013:
a) Workshops on the following:
i) Macro Stress Testing for Financial Stability Analysis;
ii) Macroeconometric Financial Stability Assessment
b) Preparation of a Manual for Implementing the COMESA Assessment Framework for Financial System Stability.
Based on the above decisions, the Institute organized three workshops from 12-24 August, 2013 in Nairobi, Kenya.
Mr. Ibrahim Abdullahi Zeidy, Director of the COMESA Monetary Institute (CMI), in his opening address of the workshops state that financial stability is often characterized as a multi-dimensional and multifaceted phenomenon prone to various internal and external factors. He underscored that the COMESA Framework for Assessing Financial System Stability provides for systemic monitoring of the individual parts of the financial system (institutions, markets, and infrastructure); components of real economy (households, firms, & public sector); global macro-financial developments; and event risk (e.g. catastrophes). He stated that the objective of the trainings is to build capacity of member countries’ central banks to independently conduct financial stability assessment at country levels.
More specifically, the workshops provided the following:
i) Discussion on current stress testing frameworks in use for financial stability assessment in COMESA member States and provided guidance on its use in the context of a forward looking financial stability analysis;
ii) A structured, comprehensive, and conceptually sound analytical framework for the assessment and measurement of systemic stability overtime and across nations.
iii) Validated the Draft Manual for implementing the COMESA Framework for Assessing Financial System Stability.
The workshops were attended by experts from member countries Central Banks Research and Bank Supervision Departments whose duties involve the assessment of the financial system stability.
