BY MBONGENI NDLELA
MBABANE – The International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff has reported that Eswatini’s 2024/2025 financial budget reflects that His Majesty King Mswati III has declared poverty and unemployment a national emergency.
This publication has established that IMF communicated its findings last Wednesday after a team led by Mr. Jaroslaw Wieczorek, IMF mission chief for Eswatini, visited the country from July 11‒24, 2024, to conduct discussions for the 2024 Article IV Consultation with Eswatini.
The preliminary findings of IMF staff will be presented to the IMF Executive Board for discussion and decision.
IMF staff has stated in its findings that Eswatini’s unemployment, which was 35.4 percent in 2023 and 48.7 percent among the youth, reflects a dearth of employment opportunities as well as large skill gaps and mismatches.
However, the Fund noted that there are initiatives to address this issue that have yet to yield significant results.
“Policies to support private sector development should aim to attract foreign direct investment to address bottlenecks in the power sector and green financing to address climate change vulnerabilities. Long-term growth needs the support of entrepreneurship, business facilitation, and education policies,” the staff stated.
The staff also noted Eswatini’s efforts to strengthen governance.
“The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) appears to have gained vigor and progress has been made on the AML/CFT front with the recently completed National Risk Assessment. However, more needs to be done to address key shortcomings, and resource constraints, and alter negative perceptions, which is essential for strengthening the business climate and attracting much-needed foreign direct investment,” stated the staff.
The staff further suggested that the increase of resources available to data producing offices, such as The Central Statistics Office, Treasury, and Ministry of Labor and Social Security, is key. Digitalization can also help improve data collection.
