August 24, 2016 - As part of a seminar on the Regional Economic Outlook, the Ashesi Economics Lecture Series welcomed Natalia Koliadina, Resident Representative of the IMF to Ashesi’s campus. Speaking on the topic Time for a Policy Restart, Ms. Koliadina presented the IMF’s position on current economic trends and forecasts within the sub-region.
As IMF’s Resident Representative assigned to Ghana, Ms. Koliadina oversees IMF’s financial program within the country, focusing on the monetary and the fiscal sectors of the economy. Against the backdrop of slowed global economic growth spurred by the rebalancing of China’s economy, weak economic growth in Europe, and weak commodity prices, growth in African economies has slowed significantly. This is following a steady rise over the past years. In her talk, Ms. Koliadina explored the growth of African economies in the immediate, medium and long term.
“We believe the medium term prospects are quite bright,” she said. “The reason for this is that for the past ten to fifteen years, business conditions in sub-Saharan Africa improved significantly with better infrastructure, better legislation and better institutional framework. At the same time it is a young continent with fast growing population and labour force has been and will continue to expand.”
The IMF’s outlook for the sub-region’s growth in the immediate future is, however, not as positive as the medium term prospects. “The region is in a difficult situation, looking at the immediate future,” Ms. Koliadina explained. “This has been significantly contributed by low commodity prices, dire fiscal conditions and existing growing macro-economic imbalances.”
In closing her lecture, she shared recommendations the IMF believes will help sustain the medium term prospects and also help turnaround the continent’s immediate slowed growth. “First and foremost, there is the need for economic diversification,” she said. “Heavy dependence on commodity exports is detrimental to economic growth and actually results in high volatility. What could also help is infrastructural development and skill-building which will end up attracting private sector partnerships into the country. Private sector, in turn, will help and contribute to economic growth. Finally, improving the business climate to boost private sector activity and development of private sector will also help economic growth.”
Since October 2015, Natasha Koliadina has been the Resident Representative for the IMF in Ghana. She has over worked with the IMF for twenty years focusing on Program and Surveillance countries. Prior to her assignment to Ghana, she was the Residential Representative for Belarus. She has also worked on IMF assignments in Lesotho and Zimbabwe.