CBP REGIONAL PARTNER INSTITUTIONS: CEMLA

Centre for Latin American Monetary Studies

Background

The Centre for Latin American Monetary Studies (CEMLA) is a not-for-profit organization founded at the Third Meeting of Central Bank Technicians in Havana, February-March 1952, which were approved the laws and general purposes of CEMLA, which was officially established in September 1952.

CEMLA is based in Mexico City and is funded by annual membership quotas. The Centre's accounts are audited annually by the Bank of Mexico, thus complementing the Centre's commitment to transparency, efficiency and cost-cutting.

The Centre is composed of 49 institutions, 30 of which are associate members that have both voice and vote on CEMLA's Assembly.

More than 10,000 officials from over 30 countries in the region and beyond have been trained through basic and specialised training courses since the Centre's inception 50 years ago. CEMLA has also organised a large number of international seminars and meetings related to its objectives.

In accordance with a mandate from its Board of Governors in Prague in September 2000, CEMLA has integrated the HIPC CBP into its objectives and activities from the second half of 2001, as outlined in the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between CEMLA and DRI.

Mission

CEMLA's mission is to promote a greater awareness of monetary and financial matters throughout the region by means of training, dissemination and research.

Objectives

The main objectives of CEMLA are:

1. To promote a better understanding of monetary and banking matters in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as the pertinent aspects of fiscal and exchange rate policies;
2. To assist in improving the qualifications of central bank and other financial agencies personnel in Latin America and the Caribbean through the organization of seminars and special training courses and the publication of surveys and research studies;
3. To conduct research and systematize the results of past experience in the above fields; and
4. To inform on developments in regional and international monetary and financial policy issues.

CEMLA's Approach and Objectives under the HIPC CBP

CEMLA's main goal is to assist its HIPC members (Bolivia, Guyana, Honduras and Nicaragua) and eventually other regional countries to develop their debt management capacity to the point where they can independently execute analysis and strategies to benefit from the HIPC Initiative and avoid future over-indebtedness. CEMLA also includes domestic debt in its definition of the debt problem.

CEMLA is conscious of the need to strengthen local capacities in debt management, and for this reason is emphasising in its programme of activities, the organization of national workshops whose main facilitators would be nationals of the country in which the workshop takes place.

It is also CEMLA's belief that efficient management of debt and finance requires not only knowledge of theoretical and operational aspects, but also a sound institutional and regulatory framework. Therefore, the programme includes research and systematic surveys to update information on the status of institutional and regulatory aspects of public credit systems in the region, providing a basis for organising regional workshops on these topics.

It is also important for CEMLA to extend the HIPC CBP to other (non-HIPC) countries in the region, a process that will be greatly facilitated by its long history of close working relationships with their Central Banks. Given the nature of the CBP, this would require consolidating relationships with the other public agencies involved in debt management in each country, a feature that has already been successfully achieved in the case of the HIPC countries.

Activities

CEMLA has executed the following activities in coordination with DRI:

Activities planned for S1/ 2005

2004 (January - September)

2003

2002

2001

1. For more details on joint HIPC CBP events, see the Calendar of Events page on this site.
2. For more information about the Capacity Building Programme in CEMLA, please contact the HIPC CBP Programme Coordinator, Jaime Coronado at jcoronadoq@cemla.org, or alternatively, visit the CBP page http://www.cemla.org/DRI-ENG-dri.htm within the site http://www.cemla.org.