Each year, important international conferences on public debt management topics are held by international multilateral organisations. You will find a short description of some most relevant forums below.
Oecd Working Party on Public Debt Management
The OECD Working Party on Debt Management (WPDM) has functioned as a unique policy forum for the senior government debt managers from OECD Member countries. Over the years the WPDM has compiled a unique, authoritative and up-to-date pool of knowledge in this field, including issuance techniques, debt strategies, operations and statistics in this special field of government activity and policy, resulting in a set of leading practices in this specialised area of government policy. Information about sound practices for government debt management and primary and secondary market operations have also been shared with debt managers from emerging market economies. To that end, the WPDM initiated in the early 1990s a policy dialogue with transition countries and, later on, with emerging markets in several regional and global policy forums.
OECD Global Forum on Public Debt Management
The OECD Global Forum on Public Debt Management is a roundtable meeting where public debt managers from the OECD area (as well regulators, central bankers, other financial policy makers and, on occasion, private sector participants) discuss best practices, experiences, and policies in the field of government debt management and the development of government and corporate securities markets with their counterparts from non-OECD countries.
The relevance of these Global Forums has increased over the years as debt managers from emerging market countries increasingly face challenges similar to those of their counterparts from advanced markets due to pressures from global finance, the international nature of financial volatility, and the related need to share and implement best practices in this policy area. In addition, emerging markets have become more important players.
Governments, investors, and financial intermediaries in both advanced and emerging markets stand to gain from debt managers making further progress in implementing best practices.
The Global Forum is organised under the aegis of the OECD Working Party on Debt Management and financially supported by the Japanese government.
The 12th OECD Global Forum on “Government Securities Markets and Public Debt Management in Emerging Markets” Rome 23-24 May 2002
The idea of the PDM Network was included in both discussions and agendas of 12th and 13th OECD Global Forums on Public Debt Management and Emerging Government Securities Markets held in Rome in 2002 and 2003. In particular, the second session of the 13th OECD Global Forum was dedicated to: “The launch of the OECD-Italian Treasury Multilateral Public Debt Management Network” . The extract from minutes of the 13th OECD Global Forum said: “One session of the Forum was the occasion to informally launch the new Multilateral Network on Public Debt Management, a new entity born from the initiative and the joint collaboration of the OECD and the Italian Treasury, intended to provide, especially to debt managers from emerging countries, with a permanent technical centre for the diffusion of debt management techniques, experiences and information, with the aim of further improving the quality and the effectiveness of debt management practices and strategies, while reducing the vulnerability of emerging countries to external financial shocks or debt crisis contagion. The Network, the main external evidence of which will be a Network dedicated Website to be released in 2004, has officially started its activity with the organization of this second session, addressing topics of interest for transition and emerging economies’ debt managers.”
12th OECD Global Forum on “Government Securities Markets and Public Debt Management in Emerging Markets” Rome 23-24 May 2002
13th OECD Global Forum On “Government Securities Markets and Public Debt Management in Emerging Markets” Rome 27-28 November 2003
World Bank Sovereign Debt Management Forum
The World Bank Sovereign Debt Management Forum's main objectives are to review recent trends and developments in sovereign debt management and to provide debt managers with the opportunity to share their experiences. This forum builds on the considerable developments that took place in public debt management in developing and emerging market countries in recent years, as well as improved access to markets. The event brings together public debt managers as well as members of the international community involved in sovereign debt management capacity building and advisory services, to discuss recent trends and developments, to network with a broad range of peers, and to gain insights to support ongoing efforts to improve policy and practices. The World Bank Treasury hosts the Sovereign Debt Management Forum, every two years as part of its capacity building and outreach program.
8th Sovereign Debt Management Forum - Sovereign debt management in emerging markets: Is the party over? Oct 19-20, 2016, Washington, DC
The 8th Sovereign Debt Management Forum was primarily targeted at developing and emerging countries. The main objectives of the Forum were to review recent trends and developments in sovereign debt management and to provide debt managers with the opportunity to share their experiences. The agenda explored the challenges of the financial environment and discussed possible responses from the debt management community. In addition, the Forum brought into focus a range of technical issues associated with implementing sound practices in public debt management.
World Bank Sovereign Debt Management Forum
World Bank Debt Management Facility Stakeholders' Forum 2020
International Retail Debt Management Symposium 2020
The International Retail Debt Management Conference (IRDMC) was inaugurated in the late nineties, when some of the major industrialized countries were facing the same issues related to public debt management.
In particular, new challenges for sovereign issuers concerned the prolonged decrease in long-term interest rates, the dematerialization of securities, the spread of new distribution channels and the need to improve communication with retail customers.
The public debt managers realized also that some issues were still not being shared with the private sector actors and, instead, an exchange of views with them would have been useful, as well as a collaboration and exchange of information with other sovereign issuers.
In a few years, the IRDMC produced a mutual enrichment of all the participating countries, which, however, are rarely competing against each other on the national retail debt markets, with their products mainly dedicated to domestic investors.
In 2000, Canada was the first country to host the IRDMC in Toronto. Since then, the conference has been held every year in a different country: Ireland, United States, Great Britain, Sweden, Italy, South Africa, Germany and Japan.
Currently, the conference is held in Washington, at the World Bank premises, on even years, while on the odd ones the event is hosted in one of the core member countries.
IRDMC core membership includes Canada, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, South Africa, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Recently, Brazil, India and Mexico have joined the core group.
More information about the IRDMC group, including private documentation on the IRDMC symposium and a discussion forum, is only accessible to IRDMC core group members.
International Retail Debt Management Symposium 2020
G8 Action Plan on “Developing Local Bond Markets in Emerging Market Economies and Developing Countries”
The G8 "Action Plan for Developing Local Bond Markets in Emerging Market Economies and Developing Countries" in 2007 called for a more efficient and robust market infrastructure. Moreover, it underlined the importance of improved public debt management practices, broader and diversified local investor base, development of derivatives, swaps, and securitization, improving local bond market databases, and promoting regional development of bond markets, where appropriate.
The Plan stressed the importance of improved and better coordinated technical assistance by IFIs to promote local bond market development, facilitating an improved dialogue between emerging and G8 market participants and engineering market regulators and sovereign issuers.
The G8 Action Plan
The Action Plan identified seven key policy issues at further enhancing the development of local currency bond markets (LBCM) in emerging market (EM) economies to enhance financial stability and economic growth:
- Strengthening market infrastructure and debt management strategies;
- Broadening and diversifying the investor base;
- Developing derivatives and swap markets;
- Broadening the database;
- Strengthening regional cooperation;
- Developing domestic bond markets in less developed countries, in particular in Sub-Saharan African countries and Technical Assistance.
- Further broadening and deepening local currency bond markets in these country groups.
In 2008 and 2009, two joint Bundesbank-IMF-World Bank International Workshops were held in Frankfurt/Main, hosted by the Deutsche Bundesbank. They focused on the G8 initiative for developing local currency bond markets in Emerging Market Economies and developing countries.
The initial G8 LCBM initiative was furtherly included in the broader Group of Twenty (G20).
The G8 and then the G20 Finance Ministers requested the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank to prepare joint progress reports on the implementation of the G8 Action Plan on local bond market development. Three progress reports where produced, the first in 2009 and the following two in June 2012 (an Interim Progress Report) and in November 2012, at the Conference held in Mexico City on 4-5 November.
The G20 Action Plan to Support The Development of Local Currency Bond Markets
The G20 is the premier forum for international cooperation on the most important aspects of the international economic and financial agenda. It brings together the world’s major advanced and emerging economies. The G20 includes 19 country members, the G7 countries and 12 large systemically important emerging market economies, and the European Union, which together represent around 90% of global GDP, 80% of global trade and two-thirds of the world’s population.
The objectives of the G20 are:
- Policy coordination between its members in order to achieve global economic stability, sustainable growth;
- To promote financial regulations that reduce risks and prevent future financial crises; and
- To create a new international financial architecture.
At the 2011 Conference of the G20 Action Plan to Support the Development of Local Currency Bond Markets, endorsed by G20 Heads of State and Government, and held on November 3-4-5, 2011 in Cannes, the PDM Network was welcomed as a technical assistance tool and as a platform useful to share best practices and case studies on LCBM development.
The PDM Network has been recognized by the G8-G20 Action Plan as one of the several global forums and networks on debt management to address several key issues. In the section related to Public Debt Management and Market Infrastructure, the Plan assesses that: “…the Italian-OECD Public debt management (PDM) network is progressing. This is a virtual platform for debt managers, to promote international dialogue and knowledge sharing. Active users from EMs include Czech Republic, Hungary, Mexico, Poland, and Turkey. The next step is to broaden the participation in the PDM program among EMEs.”
The PDM Network Secretariat has identified three tools to implement the G8-G20 Action plan:
- exchange of information on PDM issues through direct involvement of public debt managers from advanced countries that have already experienced and addressed problems now facing emerging financial markets.
- the definition of best practices in PDM is an ongoing process so that frequently up-dated information is crucial to provide appropriate benchmarks for the development of financial markets in emerging countries as well as timely inputs to PDM in advance economies.
- the use of electronic communications makes participation to the Network financially viable to all interested parties providing an inexpensive tool to keep abreast of the most recent developments in PDM.
Conference on Sovereign Risk, Fiscal Solvency and Monetary Policy: Where Do We Stand? Held in San Servolo Island (Venice, Italy) in October 4th – 5th, 2012
The workshop was organized with the support, among others, of the Italian Ministry of Economic and Finance and the OECD – Italian Treasury Public Debt Management Network Emerging Markets.
The aim of this workshop was to stimulate and disseminate research on this issue, and to foster policy debate between academics and practitioners on the main lessons that can be drawn from the Eurozone recent experience, compared to Emerging markets ones. The workshop included presentations of accepted papers in three non-parallel sessions, and two keynote lectures. A final round table between academics and practitioners drew some conclusions.
At the following links you can view the definitive agenda and with the papers presented at the workshop.