Libreville: The International Monetary Fund (IMF), supported financially by the Governments of Japan and Germany, has been instrumental in organizing three editions of the Interregional Seminar on Public Investment Management (SEIGIP) in 2022, 2023, and 2025, in collaboration with regional technical assistance centers (AFRITACs Central and West). These seminars aimed to enhance public investment management in Francophone sub-Saharan Africa by bringing together around 60 senior officials from 21 sub-Saharan African countries.
According to Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the SEIGIP seminars served as a significant platform to evaluate the impacts of IMF capacity development initiatives and the benefits of South-South cooperation. The first seminar focused on addressing public investment management (PIM) challenges that arose during the COVID-19 pandemic. Subsequent seminars continued to build on these discussions, with SEIGIP 2 in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, addressing project appraisal and selection, budgeting and execution, asset management, and fiscal risks.
The third seminar in Libreville, Gabon, delved deeper into the upstream phases of the PIM cycle. It emphasized the importance of ex-ante evaluation for project selection, shared best practices for project selection, and discussed the digitalization of PIM processes. The seminars have fostered a long-term exchange of knowledge, involving technical assistance providers and national experts.
Participants have reported high levels of satisfaction with the seminars, with 97.7% of participants from SEIGIP 3 expressing confidence in applying the knowledge gained. The seminars have been praised for their format and content, which have been well-received by all attendees. The IMF plans to continue this momentum with SEIGIP 4, scheduled to take place in January 2026 in Nouakchott, Mauritania. The experience gained over the past three years highlights areas for improvement, such as extending the seminar duration and disseminating best practices during the events.