Accra, Nov 1, GNA - Dr Chris Itsede, Director General of the West African Institute for Financial and Economic Management, on Monday asked beneficiaries of its training courses to use the skills acquired to develop home-grown economic programmes that would speed up development in their countries.

Speaking at the opening of a two-week Regional Course on Financial Programming and Policies, Dr Itsede said economic policies formulated by local officials would stop political leaders from blaming the Bretton Woods Institutions anytime a policy initiative went wrong. "If the officials from the Bretton Woods Institutions can use data we generate in our Ministries to draw up policies, why not us?" This is the only way we can convince our governments for the huge investment they are making in training us and reduce the rancour that the Bretton Woods Institutions generate," he said.

Dr Itsede said the main objectives of the Institute's training programmes was to strengthen capacity in the management of public debt, improve the skills and knowledge required for policy formulation and management and improve skills and knowledge required for macroeconomic policy analysis and management among other things.

He said the Institute had so far trained more than 4,000 Senior and Middle Level Personnel from Central Banks and Finance Ministries since its establishment eight years ago.

The 30 participants would use the two weeks to upscale their competencies to interpret and use statistics on macroeconomic indicators, diagnose the underlying problems of the economy and formulate corrective and easy to implement policies.