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Within the framework of the ongoing technical cooperation project between the DMFAS Programme and the Central Bank of the Philippines (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas BSP), three activities were organized during the first quarter 2022: a remote debt data validation workshop took place between January 17th and February 4th, followed by the project’s mid-term evaluation from February 7th to 10th and from March 7th to 18th a remote debt statistics workshop was conducted.
The project with BSP started in early 2020 with a DMFAS mission visiting BSP offices to conduct a pre-conversion of BSP’s DMFAS 5.3 installation ahead of the planned installation of DMFAS 6. After the outbreak of the Covid pandemic and an initial suspension of the project, BSP and UNCTAD agreed in late 2020 to implement the next project activities remotely. The conversion of DMFAS 5.3 to version 6 was conducted in April-May 2021 and the remote installation of DMFAS 6 took place in June 2021, which was followed by remote DMFAS functional training workshops in late June and in September 2021.
The debt data validation workshop allowed the BSP to strengthen its internal debt data validation procedures. The workshop reviewed the business processes related to the use of DMFAS in the BSP and defined a set of data validation checks and exercises.
After the data validation training, the mid-term evaluation was conducted remotely for the first time as travel restrictions still impeded sending a mission to Manila. Both parties appreciated the close collaboration between the technical teams involved in implementing the project and the excellent responsiveness of the project management teams.
The debt statistics workshop was a valuable opportunity to refresh BSP staff’s knowledge of the main international guidelines regarding the compilation and dissemination of debt statistics and conducted a review of BSP’s current practices in this area. The workshop concluded with recommendations to enrich the current debt statistical publications of the BSP, including the publication of a debt statistics bulletin, and to produce additional debt statistics under the QPSDS and the QEDS initiatives.
Throughout all these remote training and project activities, BSP’s attendance during the remote sessions was remarkable, with usually more than 20 BSP staff participating and contributing to very lively and mutually instructive sessions.
