RAMP engagements are designed to help our official sector partners develop world-class asset management operations through building in-house capacity and employing financial service providers.

Treasury has a team of experienced central bankers and investment professionals who lead client engagements and are accountable for the success of the collaboration. The engagement manager is responsible for collaborating with the client on the project plan and putting together the resources to provide conceptual, technical and systems support. A dedicated team of practitioners from throughout Treasury’s investment management business provide expert know-how and training in each of the functional areas from portfolio management to accounting. Treasury has contracted with professional finance institutes who provide general education in finance, portfolio management and specific asset classes.

The first step in joining RAMP is to organize an on-site peer review, which is a stand-alone service offered on a one-time basis for any member country institution. The peer review is a confidential on-site review of management’s objectives with recommendations for strengthening the governance structure, investment management platform and resources. Following such a review, an institution may request to join RAMP.

Treasury has been providing "needs assessments" or "peer reviews" for member countries for over twenty years. This exercise is useful in the context of strategic planning and is considered to be a stand-alone service.

The World Bank is a shareholder cooperative and any official institution of a member government can request to join RAMP. As Treasury seeks to balance its client advisory services with its fiduciary responsibilities as asset manager for multiple clients, we at times are forced to limit the number of new countries that can be accepted into the program at one time.

Clients span central banks, sovereign wealth funds, national pension funds and supranational organizations. As of year-end 2008, Treasury was working with 35 clients of which 80% were central banks. The geographical distribution is fairly evenly spread amongst regions as can be seen in Figure 1.