WAIFEM Regional Course on Good Corporate Governance

The Central Bank of The Gambia is hosting five days regional course on the subject "Implementation of Effective Risk Management and Good Corporate Governance Practices" in Banjul, The Gambia from 14 to 18 June 2010, organised by The West African Institute for Financial and Economic Management (WAIFEM).

The course is designed to upgrade the knowledge and skills of participants in the assessment and management of financial risk. the course also aims at enhancing the understanding of attendees on the principles of good corporate governance practices. During the course participants will cover the following topics general overview of risk in the financial system, types of risks in the banking sector, instituting a risk management framework, tools and techniques, credit risk measurement and management techniques, commercial bank risk measurement and management techniques, etc.
Declaring the course open, Governor Central Bank of The Gambia, Momodou Bamba Saho told participants that the course is to strengthen the economic stability, increase productivity and accelerate economic diversity. According to him, safeguarding the intrest of stakeholders, board of directors through transparency , accountability, trustworthiness and responsibility are the tools of good governance. For his part, WAIFEM Director General Professor Akpan H. Ekpo give brief account about WAIFEM, saying that WAIFEM is a collaborative sub-regional capacity building institute established in July 1996 by the cetral banks of The Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. According to him, the primary objective of the institute is to build sustainable capacity for economic and financial management in the countries of constituent member banks. During the first four years of WAIFEM operations, Professor Ekpo said the institute focused on short term customised courses and workshops for the benefit of central banks and core economic and finance ministers. However, in January 2001, the institute rolled out a medium-term Capacity Building Programme (CBP). He went on to say that the CBP marked a paradigm shift by WAIFEM from organising short-term courses to an integrated approach to capacity building encompassing the organisation of courses and workshops, demand assessment missions as well as institutional building and fellow-up missions. He pointed out that since commencing training operations in 1997, over 11, 900 middle, senior, executive level officials in WAIFEM member countries and beyond, have benefitted from the institute. He lectured, Risk is an inherent feature of human endeavours and has been since humans first walked on earth. For much of human history, risk was simply accepted as fate, something arbitrary and inevitable in the face of which human society was helpless. He stated that managing risk is essential for a rational allocation of capital among competing investment projects, which he pin pointed is essential for economic growth. According to him, the financial crises of 2007-2009 has been blamed on the rapid expansion of the financial markets through the introduction of complex financial instruments without due rwgard to robust and effective risk management by operators and regulators. It is for this reason that WAIFEM considered it fitting and timely to design and execute a course on implementation of effective risk management and good corporate governance practices.