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Meeting Schedules

Capacity Development Talk: Leveraging Technology to Strengthen Public Financial Management in South Asia

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Location: G-09

Capacity Development Events

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Overview

Strengthening Public Financial Management (PFM) remains one of the pillars of building economic stability and growth in South Asian countries.  Considerable advances have been made in the digitalization of public financial management that have improved the administration of public safety nets, service delivery and more effective cash and debt management. This event will discuss recent progress in the region and how the IMF’s South Asia Regional Training and Technical Assistance Center (SARTTAC) has been providing capacity development aimed at leveraging technology to strengthen PFM. 

 

 

Speakers

Franck Bousquet is deputy director of the IMF’s Institute for Capacity Development, overseeing the IMF’s global partnerships. Previously, he was the deputy director coordinating the IMF’s engagement with fragile and conflict-affected states, leading the preparation of the related strategy, approved by the Executive Board in March 2022. Before joining the IMF, he was the senior director of the World Bank’s Fragility, Conflict and Violence Group. Mr. Bousquet has also several years of leadership experience in low- and middle- income countries in Africa and the Middle East, including significant work on resilience and reconstruction issues. He led an international effort providing for the first-time concessional financing to middle-income countries facing refugee crises. He previously held roles in the public and private sectors, focused on sustainable development, finance and capital markets. He holds an MBA with a specialization in finance from Columbia Business School and a graduate diploma in engineering from France.

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Juhi Mukherjee is an Indian Administrative Service officer with nearly two decades of experience in administration. Since 2020 she has worked in the Department of Economic Affairs at the Ministry of Finance of India, looking after policy- and program-related issues of multilateral development banks and international financial institutions, including the IMF, World Bank and the Asia Development Bank. 

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Kapila Senanayake is Director General of the Department of Fiscal Policy of the Ministry of Finance, Economic Development, Policy Formulation, Planning and Tourism of Sri Lanka. He also serves as an ex-officio member at the Board of Governors of the Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka. Mr. Senanayake holds a PhD in Economics from the University of New South Wales, Australia, Master of Public Policy from Graduate School of Business Strategy, Hitotsubashi University, Japan and Bachelor of Commerce Special Degree from University of Sri Jayewardenepura. Previously, Mr. Senanayake served as a Director of National Savings Bank. He has also been a Director of Hotel Developers (Lanka) Ltd, Board of Investment of Sri Lanka, University Grant Commission, Post Graduate Institute of English, Sri Lanka Institute of Local Governance and Lanka Coal Ltd. In addition, he served as a Director in the Department of Fiscal Policy at the Government Treasury and was an Assistant Director of Department of National Planning at Ministry of Finance and Planning.

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Juan Toro is Deputy Director of the IMF’s Fiscal Affairs Department (FAD), in charge of managing its budget, relationship with development partners, overseeing governance and operations of FAD’s capacity development and coordinating it in the Western Hemisphere region, and FAD’s work on digitalization of public finance operations (GovTech). He previously was Assistant Director in charge of the IMF’s revenue administration capacity development in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Mr. Toro has led and participated in IMF’s technical assistance missions in taxation in more than 40 countries and has authored and contributed to several analytical papers in taxation. Before joining the IMF in 2007, he held several managerial positions at the Chilean Tax Administration, before becoming its Commissioner. In 2004, he received the Wharton-Infosys Business Transformation Award for leading the online tax administration model in Chile. His experience in the private sector entails managerial positions and member of the board of directors in Chilean companies. He graduated as Civil Industrial Engineer and earned a Master’s Degree in Economics and Management at the University of Chile.

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Harald Finger is the Director of the IMF’s South Asia Regional Training and Technical Assistance Center (SARTTAC). He brings extensive experience in macroeconomic, financial, and policy issues, as well as deep expertise across emerging and advanced economies in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond. Previously, Mr. Finger served as Assistant Director in the IMF's Asia and Pacific Department and Mission Chief for India. During his 25-year career at the IMF, he has held a range of country and regional assignments across Africa, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and Latin America. He was Mission Chief for Australia and Korea and Head of the Regional Studies Division in the Asia and Pacific Department. He has also worked extensively on economic surveillance, policy analysis, crisis resolution, and regional economic issues. Before joining the IMF, Mr. Finger was a Senior Economist at Deutsche Bank.

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