The meeting between Dominican government authorities and representatives of the IMF took place virtually. Ministers Pavel Isa Contreras, Jochi Vicente, Miguel Ceará Hatton, and the general directors Martín Francos and José Rijo Presbot participated.
The Ministries of Economy, Planning and Development, Finance, and Environment and Natural Resources of the Dominican Government held a meeting with the mission of the IMF to implement an Evaluation of the Management of the Public Investment (PIMA) and a Climate Change Public Investment Management Assessment (C-PIMA).
PIMA is a framework for assessing infrastructure governance practices. The evaluation analyzes 15 dimensions in the public investment cycle: planning, resource allocation, and project implementation.
C-PIMA assesses countries’ capacity to manage climate-related infrastructure. It identifies areas of improvement in public investment processes for greater efficiency.
The Minister of Economy, Pável Isa Contreras, analyzed the results of the indicators and tools used in these evaluations, which have been applied in 93 countries for PIMA and 40 countries for C-PIMA.
The Minister of Finance, José Manuel Vicente, expressed full support of the Dominican Government for this initiative to improve decision-making, control, and monitoring of public investment.
The Minister of the Environment, Miguel Ceara Hatton, emphasized the importance of government entities acting in coordination with technical assistance.
Virginia Alonso Albarrán, senior economist of the Public Finance Management Division of the IMF, explained that the efficiency gap in public investment management in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is 29%. This figure is similar to emerging markets.
He argued that achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the goals set in the Paris Agreement would require an average annual capital cost of 3.4% of LAC’s GDP until 2030.
He also noted that infrastructure investment needs are substantial in LAC to achieve the SDGs.
The economist argued that better infrastructure governance could offset more than half of the observed efficiency losses and reiterated the need to strengthen infrastructure governance.
The meeting was also attended by the general director of Public Investment, Martín Francos, and the general director of Budget, José Rijo Presbot.