What They Don’t Teach You at University—Public Financial Management, for Example!

Posted by Dimitar Vlahov [1]

It is easy to see that public financial management (PFM) employs many thousands, maybe  even hundreds of thousands of people around the world. All professionals involved in the operation, management, development or review of budgetary processes can be considered PFM practitioners. In all modesty, these professionals could consider themselves pillars of the governance process, be it at the level of multinational administrations, national governments, or even the most humble local government entity. All government organizations need money and need to manage their monies systematically to enable their activities. Add to all these civil servants the  international experts at places such as the World Bank, the IMF, and other multi-lateral organizations, together with private consultants and NGO/non-profit advisors, and you get a very large crowd. Why is it, then, that there is no graduate university degree in PFM,  especially in the United States with its academically diverse offering of curriculums? The big demand for PFM-skills, one might reason, would suggest this is an unlikely outcome.

Legislative Oversight and Budgeting – A World Perspective

Posted by Ian Lienert

The legislature has three core functions—representation, lawmaking, and oversight. The oversight function is perhaps the least studied and practiced. This is perhaps because oversight is bolstered somewhat less by external institutions. Oversight involves assessing implementation processes. It comes toward the end of the policy process, during the implementation of laws. In many countries, even those with a formal separation of legislative policy making and executive administrative powers, oversight provides the opportunity for legislators to participate in implementation. When it comes to budgeting, evaluation is needed to assess how well policies have been implemented. Legislative oversight includes examining fidelity to budget laws, probity in spending, efficiency in choices, and the effectiveness of the budget in producing the desired outcomes. Since it is the legislature that examines executive behavior, oversight is also a tool for checking the behavior of the budget system’s single most powerful political actor.

Although policy making and lawmaking are central tasks of the legislature, concern with the implementation of law is the realm of legislative oversight. A World Bank Institute book, published in 2007, examines the different facets of how executives implement budget laws. This book, edited by Rick Stapenhurst, Riccardo Pelizzo, David Olson, and Lisa von Trapp, and originated in large part with the concern of practitioners about increasing and improving the part played by legislative oversight in governing developing democracies. As part of its governance program, the World Bank Institute seeks to strengthen parliamentary oversight and to promote enhanced government accountability and transparency. The book is an eclectic compilation that samples the worlds of practice and scholarship.

New book on the politics of government auditing in emerging economies

The Political Economy of Government Auditing: Financial Governance and the Rule of Law in Latin America and Beyond by Carlos Santiso (London: Routlegde, May 2009) Available from May 18 at http://www.routledgelaw.com/books/The-Political-Economy-of-Government-Auditing-isbn9780415477734