Technical Assistance Staff
Programme Coordinator: Dr. M. Arnold McIntyre
Meredith Arnold McIntyre, a Grenadian national, received a BSC (Econ) honors degree from the University of the West Indies (Cave Hill campus; Barbados) in 1982. In 1985 he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and completed an MA in Economics at Yale University. Subsequently, he received a Commonwealth Scholarship to attend the University of Toronto and was awarded a PhD in Economics in 1990.
Dr. McIntyre had an extensive career in the region working for the Caribbean Development Bank, the OECS Secretariat, a consultant with the Caribbean Export Development Agency and in 1996 joined the CRNM (recently renamed the Office of Trade Negotiations; CARICOM Secretariat) as the lead Technical Adviser. Dr. McIntyre joined the International Monetary Fund in February, 2001 as a senior economist in the Policy Development and Review Department. He has worked in the African Department as senior economist on the Fund’s Kenya team and in 2006 went to Ghana as IMF Resident Representative. Dr. McIntyre returned to IMF HQ in 2009 as Deputy Division Chief, Caribbean Division 1, and Western Hemisphere Department.
Dr. McIntyre has published articles in academic journals in the areas of macroeconomic policy in small, open economies; regional integration in the Caribbean; trade policy and economic development; fiscal policy and debt management and multilateral trade liberalization in the Doha Round. Dr. McIntyre published a book in 1995 entitled: Trade and Economic Development in Small, Open Economies: The Case of the Caribbean Countries.
Dr. McIntyre is married to a St. Lucian national and they have three children.
Email: amcintyre@imf.orgPublic Finance Management Adviser: Mark Silins
Mr. Silins is an Australian national with over 25 years experience in public financial management. In Australia Mark worked in both central agencies and line ministries and has been involved in both PFM policy and its practical implementation during a period of major PFM reform in his country. In 2000, Mr. Silins commenced working as a international adviser and has worked in over 12 countries. His experience spans budget preparation, budget execution, accounting, and internal audit. Outside of work Mr. Silins tries to lead an active life, walking and bike riding. He does, however, confess to spending large amounts of time watching sport, particularly athletics and cricket.
Tax and Customs Adviser: Brian Dawe
Mr. Brian H. Dawe is a Canadian citizen, graduate of Dalhousie University and a Certified General Accountant of Canada. During the past four years Brian has been with the IMF as a Fiscal Affairs Department headquarters-based Consultant in Revenue Administration and as the IMF resident tax adviser in Cambodia. He is presently retired from the Canadian Customs and Revenue Agency and brings with him a wealth of executive experience acquired over 30 years in various Canadian and international tax administration areas.
Email: bdawe@imf.org
Tax & Customs Adviser: Robert Mills
Robert Mills, a British national, spent over 29 years with Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise in the UK, and during that time worked in all of the areas of activity covered by that Department. Latterly he specialized in VAT administration and training, and it was these subjects which led him to work outside the UK, initially on a VAT implementation project in East Africa. Subsequently he has worked on Customs and VAT reform projects in South Asia and Central Africa, as well as spending time as a VAT adviser and consultant for a major multi-national audit firm in East Africa.
Email: rmills2@imf.org
Tax Administration Adviser: Denise Edwards-Dowe
Ms. Edwards-Dowe, a national of Dominica and a graduate of the University of the Virgin Islands, is on a two-year assignment with CARTAC. During the past 11 years, she has served with Dominica’s Inland Revenue Division in various capacities, with her most recent role being Deputy Comptroller of Inland Revenue and Head of the VAT Unit. She has extensive experience in the administration of income tax, sales tax, and most recently, VAT.
Email: dedwardsdowe@imf.org
Tax Administration Adviser: Brian C. Jones
Brian Jones, from Canada, is CARTAC’s new advisor focused on customs, international trade, and border management issues. He previously worked in customs operations with the Canadian revenue and border service agencies for thirty years. He has held a variety of senior managerial responsibilities relating to policy and program development, client consultation, IT systems development, training and human resource management. Brian has extensive experience in international technical assistance, training and consultancy, including work as a headquarters based technical assistance advisor for revenue administration matters with the International Monetary Fund.
Email: bjones3@imf.org
Price Statistics Adviser: Paul Armknecht
Paul Armknecht is the new Price Statistics Adviser. For the past two years he has been working in the region as a short-term expert. Paul is a U.S. national who worked in the IMF Statistics Department from 1995 – 2006 as a senior economist and Deputy Division Chief of the Real Sector. He was the editor of the
Producer Price Index Manual and a key contributor to the
Consumer Price Index Manual and the
Export-Import Price Index Manual. Prior to joining the IMF Paul was the Assistant Commissioner for Consumer Prices at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics where he also had experience with the producer price index, wages, employment, and unemployment statistics programs. Paul holds a B.S. in economics from Loyola University (Baltimore) and an M.S. (quantitative economics) and Ph.D. (labor economics) from the Catholic University of America.
MacroEconomic Adviser: Miriam A Blanchard
Miriam Blanchard came to CARTAC following more than ten years at the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB), where she worked as a Senior Economist. During her employment at the ECCB, her work included surveillance of Eastern Caribbean economies and the compilation of Balance of Payments (BOP) and fiscal statistics. In the execution of her surveillance duties, Miriam worked closely with staff of the IMF during Article IV Consultations on behalf of ECCB member governments. As Coordinator of the BOP Unit, she represented the ECCB on the IMF’s Statistics Department’s Currency Union Technical Experts Group (CUTEG) and often interacted with the IMF’s Balance of Payments Division. She also initiated the revision of the ECCB’s BOP survey forms and delivered BOP training programmes for ECCB economists and statisticians across the ECCU.
Email: mblanchard@imf.org
Macro-Fiscal Adviser: Michel Marion
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Mr. Michel Marion is the first to occupy CARTAC’s new position of macro-fiscal adviser. Michel provided considerable Technical Assistance (TA) as a short-term CARTAC consultant. Many of you may already have met Michel, who was the principal instructor at 12 CARTAC Revenue Modeling and Forecasting workshops conducted in the region over the last two years, and to which 16 member countries sent participants. He has also worked with some of our member countries to set up macro-fiscal units in their ministries of Finance; and to prepare target-based multi-year budget frameworks and debt sustainability analyses. Michel is a graduate of the University of Ottawa in Canada’s capital. In addition to his consulting work to date with CARTAC, Michel comes with a wealth of operational and executive experience gained in the ministries of Finance and Treasury in the Government of Canada, as a short-term and as a resident macro-fiscal adviser assisting various countries of Latin America, Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Michel and his wife Debbie are now based in Barbados while their three adult sons are established in Ottawa.
Financial Sector Supervision Adviser: Howard “Skip” Edmonds
Mr. Edmonds is the Financial Sector Supervision Adviser at CARTAC. Prior to joining CARTAC, he worked for three years with the National Bank of Georgia in Tbilisi, Georgia to improve the quality of banking supervision as set forth in the 25 Basel Core Principles. Before his position at the National Bank of Georgia, Mr. Edmonds worked for four years as an International Monetary Fund Lead Banking Supervision Advisor at Bank Indonesia in Jakarta, Indonesia. His primary focus was to raise staff supervisory skills to international levels as set forth in the 25 Basel Core Principles. He was also the primary liaison person in Bank Indonesia for coordination of activities in the banking sector offered by other donor agencies. Prior to his technical assistance work at the International Monetary Fund, Mr. Edmonds was an International Advisor with the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. In this capacity, he monitored and assessed banking systems in Latin America and Asia with a primary focus on Mexico, Thailand, Japan, and the Philippines. He has published two articles on the Mexican banking system and presented a thesis “Bank Supervision as a Tool to Reduce Risks in Foreign Currency Funding to Emerging Markets
” at the Asian Business Society Conference at New York University. His articles can be found at
http://dallasfed.org/banking/fii/index.html under “Pension Reform in Mexico” and under “Mexican Bank Open to Foreign Investors”.
Mr. Edmonds holds a B.S. in Economics from the College of Charleston, Charleston, South Carolina and is a graduate of the Graduate School of Banking at Colorado, Boulder, Colorado.
