Dr. Katz was the Associate Executive Director of the Centre for the Study of the Economies of Africa (CSEA). He previously worked at the International Monetary Fund where he headed IMF Missions to several African Countries,including Nigeria. He joined the Board in 2015 as chair of the Resource Mobilization and Programmes Committee.
Dr. Menachem Katz is a Distinguished Fellow at CSEA. He served at different positions at the IMF for 29 years in various capacities, working on countries in East Asia, Latin America, and Africa; most recently served as mission chief for Cameroon, Kenya and Nigeria. He negotiated a Policy Support Instrument which enabled the government to reach a debt deal with Paris Club creditors which virtually eliminated Nigeria’s external debt; organized workshops on oil revenue management in Douala and Libreville with top officials of oil exporting countries in Africa and international oil companies operating in Africa.
Dr. Katz also led technical assistance (TA) missions as Assistant Director in the Fiscal Affairs Department to Mauritius (fiscal rules and Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and program-based budgeting), Mauritania (oil revenue management), and Burkina Faso (tax policy); and coordinated TA work to African countries on public finance. He taught at universities in the US and has published papers on external indebtedness dynamics in growing economies; interest rates, capital flows and taxation; import tariffs and international trade; demographic trends and the future of social programs; oil revenue management; aid absorption, policies and institutions.
In addition, he issued country reports and supervised selected economic issues papers on various countries and other research papers of subordinates. Dr. Katz has done consulting work for DFID Nigeria in the area of debt management; and for the Washington-Based Centennial Group on JICA projects concerning country risk assessments for Uzbekistan, Cambodia, Myanmar, Ethiopia and Cote d’Ivoire; the World Bank on tax expenditures in Armenia; and for the IMF on management development.