Finance Ministry, PSI sign agreement to track and guide Homegrown Economic Reforms

Addis Ababa, February 5, 2021 (FBC) – The Ministry of Finance and Policy Studies Institute (PSI) signed a cooperation agreement to track and guide progress of the Homegrown Economic Reform (HGER) Program.

According to the agreement, PSI will support the preparation of a monitoring and evaluation system for the reform package which will support the Ministry of Finance’s ongoing efforts to ensure timeliness of implementation and effectiveness of reforms.

“This analysis and other rigorous research studies by PSI will help to inform policymakers in the Ministry of Finance and other implementing ministries of the impact of these important reforms.”, indicated the Ministry in a statement.

Specifically, PSI will undertake a thorough review of the macroeconomic, structural, and sectoral plans in agricultural, manufacturing, mining, tourism, and ICT fields under the HGER.

It will also evaluate the implementation of the HGER program regularly to generate recommendations for future implementation and will conduct rigorous policy analysis on HGER priority areas, including important economic issues such as external macroeconomic imbalances, foreign exchange and currency issues, inflation, fiscal policy, debt sustainability, and job creation.

PSI will also conduct analysis of important pro-business issues such as access to finance, ease of doing business, logistics and power sector development to help further supplement policy-making efforts in these areas.

The HGER agenda sets the broad direction for Ethiopia’s macroeconomic, structural, and sectoral reforms.

Relevant HGER implementing institutions are expected to prepare strategic documents and detailed action plans to implement the reform and ensure the pathway to prosperity is paved, the statement says.

The Ministry of Finance, the Ethiopian Investment Commissions, and the Planning and Development Commission are the key coordinating bodies for reforms in macro-economic, structural and sectoral interventions respectively.

The FDRE Policy Studies Institute is a policy think tank established in November 2018 by the Ethiopian government.

It was founded by merging two state-owned think tanks in Ethiopia, the Ethiopian Development Research Institute (EDRI) and Policy Study and Research Centre (PSRC), established in 1999 and 2014, respectively.