Global Macroeconomic Challenges Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Financial Planning and Analysis Managers, Treasury Managers and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 16 Nov 2026 Course code SD-EE-043

Before you join: Participants should understand basic business finance, percentage changes, interest rates, inflation and common financial statements.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Global macroeconomic conditions shape borrowing costs, exchange rates, demand, commodity prices, public finances and investment decisions. Finance, strategy and risk professionals must turn large volumes of economic data into defensible assumptions for budgets, forecasts, pricing and risk reports. The challenge is not merely following headlines; it is distinguishing cyclical movements from structural change, identifying transmission channels and judging which indicators matter for a particular country, market or balance sheet.

This course examines the forces driving global growth, inflation, monetary policy, fiscal policy, trade, capital flows, exchange rates and sovereign debt. Participants learn to interpret national accounts, central bank decisions, balance-of-payments data and leading indicators. They use established macroeconomic models, including the IS-LM framework, Mundell-Fleming model, Phillips curve, Taylor rule and debt sustainability analysis, to assess plausible economic scenarios and their financial consequences.

Teaching combines concise instructor briefings with data interpretation, structured case work, group analysis and scenario simulations. Cases draw on issues relevant to banks, multinational firms, public institutions and development organisations, including inflation shocks, currency depreciation, debt stress, commodity-price volatility and trade restrictions. Participants build a reusable macroeconomic country-risk and scenario-planning pack containing indicator dashboards, transmission maps, assumptions and response actions.

The course is suited to professionals who use economic conditions in financial planning, investment analysis, risk management, policy work, treasury, procurement or corporate strategy. It focuses on practical interpretation and decision support rather than advanced econometric estimation.

What you will be able to do

  • Interpret national accounts, inflation and labour-market data for macroeconomic assessment
  • Analyse monetary-policy decisions using inflation, output-gap and Taylor-rule evidence
  • Assess fiscal positions using primary balances, debt dynamics and sustainability indicators
  • Evaluate exchange-rate movements through balance-of-payments and Mundell-Fleming analysis
  • Construct macroeconomic scenarios with explicit shocks, transmission channels and assumptions
  • Translate global economic developments into revenue, cost, liquidity and credit-risk implications
  • Compare country macroeconomic risks using a structured indicator scorecard
  • Prepare an evidence-based macroeconomic briefing for senior decision-makers

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Stronger judgement when interpreting central-bank, IMF and government economic releases
  • A clearer basis for challenging unsupported assumptions in budgets and investment proposals
  • Practical confidence explaining inflation, rates and currency risks to senior stakeholders
  • A repeatable method for comparing macroeconomic conditions across countries
  • Improved ability to convert economic shocks into actionable financial responses

For your organisation

  • More defensible macroeconomic assumptions in planning, forecasting and stress-testing cycles
  • Earlier identification of currency, interest-rate and sovereign-risk exposures
  • Better alignment between economic scenarios and treasury, procurement and investment decisions
  • Clearer management reporting on external risks affecting revenue, costs and liquidity
  • More consistent country-risk assessments across business units and geographic markets

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can interpret core macroeconomic data and identify the signals relevant to business and policy decisions.

  • National accounts identity linking output, income, expenditure and sector balances
  • Real versus nominal GDP, deflators, chain volumes and base effects
  • Potential output estimates, output gaps and cyclical adjustment limits
  • Reading PMI, industrial production, retail sales and labour market releases
  • Nowcasting growth using mixed-frequency indicators and revision-aware data
  • Cross-country comparability issues in GDP, inflation and employment statistics

Participants can diagnose inflation pressures and assess their implications for demand, costs and policy.

  • Consumer price indices, producer prices and core inflation measures
  • Decomposing inflation into demand, supply, expectations and exchange-rate effects
  • Phillips curve relationships, wage growth and labour-market tightness
  • Measuring real income, purchasing power and household consumption capacity
  • Inflation expectations from surveys, breakevens and central-bank communications
  • Assessing second-round effects through wages, rents and administered prices

Participants can assess monetary-policy settings and trace their effects through financial conditions.

  • Central-bank mandates, policy frameworks and operational target interest rates
  • Taylor rule estimates using inflation gaps and output gaps
  • Policy-rate transmission through lending rates, bond yields and asset prices
  • Yield curves, term premia and recession-signal interpretation
  • Quantitative easing, balance-sheet policy and liquidity transmission mechanisms
  • Financial conditions indices combining rates, spreads, equities and exchange rates

Participants can evaluate fiscal policy choices, debt dynamics and sovereign financing risks.

  • Government revenue, expenditure, primary balance and headline deficit measures
  • Debt dynamics linking interest rates, growth, deficits and exchange rates
  • Structural balances and cyclical adjustment for fiscal-policy assessment
  • Debt sustainability analysis using baseline, shock and financing scenarios
  • Sovereign spreads, credit ratings and refinancing-risk indicators
  • Fiscal multipliers under differing monetary, trade and capacity conditions

Participants can analyse how trade and capital movements affect external vulnerability and growth.

  • Balance-of-payments accounts under the IMF BPM6 classification framework
  • Current-account balances, savings-investment gaps and external financing needs
  • Trade elasticities, terms of trade and commodity-price transmission
  • Foreign direct investment, portfolio flows and sudden-stop risk
  • Global value chains, import dependence and supply disruption exposure
  • Trade restrictions, tariffs and non-tariff barriers affecting inflation

Participants can explain exchange-rate movements and assess currency consequences for organisational decisions.

  • Nominal and real effective exchange rates for competitiveness assessment
  • Purchasing power parity and uncovered interest parity limitations
  • Mundell-Fleming analysis under fixed and floating exchange-rate regimes
  • Currency depreciation pass-through to prices, debt and imports
  • Foreign-exchange reserve adequacy, intervention and capital-control considerations
  • Translating currency scenarios into cash flow and margin exposures

Participants can identify global growth drivers and map their transmission into national and sector outcomes.

  • Business-cycle phases identified through output, employment and credit indicators
  • IS-LM framework linking goods markets, money markets and interest rates
  • Global growth spillovers through trade, finance, commodities and confidence
  • China, United States and euro area demand effects
  • Commodity cycles affecting exporters, importers and fiscal revenues
  • Sector sensitivity mapping for consumer, industrial, banking and infrastructure activity

Participants can assess macro-financial vulnerabilities arising from credit, liquidity and asset-price cycles.

  • Credit-to-GDP gaps and private-sector debt vulnerability indicators
  • Bank balance sheets, non-performing loans and lending capacity
  • Asset-price bubbles, collateral channels and wealth effects
  • Liquidity stress, funding mismatches and rollover-risk transmission
  • Macroprudential tools including capital buffers and loan-to-value limits
  • Linking financial-stability indicators to macroeconomic downside scenarios

Participants can produce structured country assessments and plausible macroeconomic scenarios for decision support.

  • Country-risk scorecards covering growth, inflation, external and fiscal conditions
  • Selecting leading indicators for baseline, upside and downside scenarios
  • Shock design using probability, magnitude, duration and transmission channels
  • Scenario narratives linking policy choices, markets and real-economy effects
  • Sensitivity tables for revenues, costs, interest expense and exchange rates
  • Early-warning thresholds triggering management review and response actions

Participants can communicate macroeconomic judgements, assumptions and actions clearly to decision-makers.

  • Writing executive economic briefings with evidence, judgement and uncertainty
  • Distinguishing facts, forecasts, assumptions and risk statements clearly
  • Presenting fan charts, scenario ranges and confidence limitations
  • Connecting macroeconomic developments to budgets, investments and operational decisions
  • Challenging consensus forecasts through indicator-based counterarguments
  • Application plan for recurring economic monitoring and reporting routines

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Macroeconomic indicator dashboard template
  2. Country-risk assessment scorecard
  3. Inflation and interest-rate scenario model
  4. Fiscal debt sustainability analysis worksheet
  5. Exchange-rate transmission map
  6. Executive macroeconomic briefing template

Who should attend

  • Financial Planning and Analysis Managers — translate economic conditions into budgets and forecasts
  • Treasury Managers — assess interest-rate, liquidity and currency exposures
  • Risk Managers — incorporate macroeconomic scenarios into enterprise and credit risk assessments
  • Investment Analysts — evaluate growth, inflation and policy assumptions behind valuations
  • Economists and Policy Advisers — strengthen applied analysis for briefings and programme design
  • Strategy and Procurement Managers — assess demand, supply-cost and trade-policy effects

Skills and tools covered

Macroeconomic data interpretationInflation scenario analysisCountry risk assessmentExchange-rate analysisFiscal sustainability assessmentEconomic scenario planning

Tools and standards

IMF Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual, BPM6, Taylor rule, Mundell-Fleming model, Debt sustainability analysis

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor briefings to establish core concepts, followed by guided interpretation of economic releases, charts and country data. Participants work through cases involving inflation persistence, central-bank tightening, currency pressure, fiscal stress and commodity shocks. Group exercises apply macroeconomic models to realistic decisions, while simulations test how shocks move through trade, financial and policy channels. The final application-planning segment converts course methods into a country-risk and scenario-planning approach for participants' own roles.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should understand basic business finance, percentage changes, interest rates, inflation and common financial statements. Experience preparing budgets, forecasts, risk reports, investment cases or management briefings is useful. Participants should be comfortable reading charts and tables and discussing economic news in relation to organisational decisions. No economics degree is required, and no advanced calculus, econometric software or statistical programming experience is assumed. The course explains core macroeconomic models before applying them to data, cases and decision scenarios.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

You should understand basic finance concepts such as interest rates, inflation, percentage changes and financial statements. No economics degree, advanced mathematics or econometric software experience is required.

Bring a laptop if possible, together with a recent budget, forecast, country-risk issue or economic question relevant to your role. Course materials and data cases are provided by the instructor.

The course is designed for finance, treasury, risk, investment, strategy, policy and procurement professionals who use economic assumptions in decisions. It is particularly relevant for people working across countries or exposed to currencies, commodities and interest rates.

This course focuses on interpreting macroeconomic conditions and converting them into business and policy decisions. It uses data and established models but does not focus on regression estimation, programming or building valuation models.

You can improve assumptions used in budgets, forecasts, risk reports and investment proposals. The templates support recurring economic monitoring, country comparisons and scenario discussions with senior management.

Each day runs from 08:30 to 16:30 and provides about 6.5 contact hours. The five days cover measurement, inflation, policy, international economics, financial stability, country risk and communication through ten linked modules.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

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