West African Economic and Monetary Union: Staff Report on Common Policies for Member Countries-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for the West African Economic and Monetary Union

International Monetary Fund

No 2025/110, IMF Staff Country Reports from International Monetary Fund

Abstract: This paper presents IMF staff report on common policies for member countries of West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU). Economic growth continues to be strong in the WAEMU. Inflation has fallen back to its target range, and recent improvements in regional external imbalances are supporting a strong recovery in reserves. The Council of Ministers has agreed to submit for approval by Heads of State a proposal by the WAEMU Commission for a revised Convergence Pact maintaining the previous fiscal deficit and public debt ceilings of 3 and 70 percent of gross domestic product, respectively. Public debt ratios have increased significantly and heterogeneously in recent years due to large fiscal deficits and stock-flow adjustments. Ongoing progress in union-wide fiscal consolidation is welcome, although it is proceeding at a slower pace than anticipated mainly because of large data revisions in Senegal. Rapid adoption of this pact would signal a stronger commitment to debt sustainability and help guide sound fiscal policies. The WAEMU's institutions should also continue to promote regional integration.

Keywords: WAEMU region; WAEMU Convergence pact; authorities' achievement; WAEMU member; member states' authorities; policy corridor; Anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT); Government debt management; Credit; Fiscal consolidation; West Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa; Global (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 78
Date: 2025-05-19
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mac
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=567030 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:imf:imfscr:2025/110

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/pubs/ord_info.htm

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IMF Staff Country Reports from International Monetary Fund International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Akshay Modi ().