Overview and Strategic Partnerships

The Commonwealth Secretariat has been assisting its member countries in the area of debt management since the early 1980's.

The advisory services and capacity building programme put in place and executed by the Debt Management Section (DMS) in the Special Advisory Services Division (SASD) comprises a number of components including:

The development, installation and support of the Commonwealth Secretariat Debt Recording and Management System (CS-DRMS 2000+);

Assistance in the compilation, recording and review of debt databases;
Training in debt management and the use of the CS-DRMS 2000+ software; and
Advisory services to strengthen institutional aspects of debt management.

The CS-DRMS 2000+ software, which is the key tool for delivering DMS' services, includes facilities for tracking external and domestic borrowings and supports a wide range of financial instruments including various types of loans, bonds and securities. It also provides a rich suite of reports, reporting utilities and analytical tools for supporting borrowing and debt restructuring decision making.

Over the years, some 54 countries, (including seven outside the Commonwealth) have benefited from the programme and use CS-DRMS, which has established itself as one of the leading debt recording and management systems.

In delivering this programme DMS collaborates with several organisations. The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB), the Macroeconomic and Financial Management Institute of Eastern and Southern Africa (MEFMI) and the West African Institute of Financial and Economic Management (WAIFEM) have been important partners in organising several regional workshops to train users on the use of CS-DRMS. DMS, in collaboration with these organisations, is currently recruiting four resident regional advisors to further enhance the delivery of the programme in the Caribbean, Eastern/Southern African, Pacific, and West African Regions.

Strategic Partnerships

DMS also works with the IMF, the World Bank and other organisations to develop guidelines and best practices for effective debt management, which have been published as a Debt Guide. We also work with Debt Relief International (DRI) in providing debt advisory services focused on Debt Sustainability to Commonwealth countries. Through a collaborative arrangement with L'Agence Intergovernmentale de La Francophonie (AIF), DMS has produced a French version of the software which is implemented in non-Commonwealth countries through a distributorship arrangement with Crown Agents, a private sector consultancy firm.

In recent years gender issues and the effect of globalisation have assumed increasing importance in debt and general economic management; DMS will soon issue two publications on these topics to raise awareness among member countries to help them deal with these issues.

Pre and post HIPC debt analysis

Several Commonwealth countries including the Gambia, Ghana, Guyana and Sierra Leone have utilised data from the CS-DRMS software and the joint assistance of DRI and DMS to conduct pre- and post- HIPC debt analysis.