Three Prizes of Digital PFM in Southern Africa

Posted by Moulay El Omari, Felipe Bardella, and Gerardo Uña^[1]

Digital technologies are transforming economies and human behavior around the world. The public sector in general, and public finances especially, have been involved in this revolution but governments need to accelerate their efforts.

Call for Papers: Practitioner's Corner, Governance

Posted by Richard Allen^[1]

Governance is an international journal devoted to the comparative study of executive politics, public policy, administration, and the organization of the state. PFM is one such area of interest. The journal seeks contributions that combine theoretical sophistication with rigorous empirical research. We welcome submissions employing any methodological approach that makes a clear and original intervention in a scholarly literature related to the journal's aims and scope. Peer-reviewed articles have a maximum length of 9,000 words.

The FRAT Brings Order to the Fiscal Risk Party

Posted by Fritz Bachmair, Celeste Kubasta, Lesley Fisher, and Nabil Hamliri^[1]

Fiscal risks can be a rowdy crowd, as the COVID-19 pandemic and the Global Financial Crisis have shown. If left unchecked, overexposed governments may wake up with a persistent headache. Being a good chaperone, the IMF is developing the Fiscal Risk Assessment Tool (FRAT) as part of a suite of tools to assess and manage fiscal risks.[2]

PFM and Service Delivery – What’s New, What’s Missing, What’s Next

Posted by Sierd Hadley, Tom Hart, and Mark Miller[1]

For over a decade there has been growing interest in linking PFM reforms to better service delivery results. A new paper by ODI argues that the discussion of PFM and service delivery has narrowed too far, and that a change in approach is needed to make the most of this growing agenda.

Balancing ‘Maintenance’ and ‘Investment’

Posted by Yasya Babych, Luc Leruth, and Christiane Roehler^[1]

Governments’ investment budgets are under pressure as urbanization, new technologies like broadband, and efforts to “green” economies require new kinds of infrastructure. At the same time, and partly as a result, traditional public infrastructure such as roads and bridges but also sewage systems or storm water drainage tend to be neglected. Infrastructure assets can accommodate a lack of maintenance for some years, and even some concomitant increases in demand, e.g., road traffic and, in the time of COVID, pressure on municipal facilities as people work from home. However, over time, capacity constraints emerge, and the erosion of the stock accelerates. Eventually, this leads to costly rehabilitation or even a need for a total rebuild.

Green Budgeting in the Caribbean

Posted by Tom Beloe, Colin Owen, and Claude Wendling^[1]

On March 10, 2021, the IMF’s Fiscal Affairs Department (FAD) and its Caribbean Regional Technical Assistance Center (CARTAC), as well as the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) joined forces to organize a roundtable dedicated to green budgeting practices in the Caribbean region.

Building Resilience to Natural Disasters and Climate Change in Africa

Posted by Felipe Bardella and Moulay El Omari^[1]

Unlike many other environmental challenges, climate change is uniquely global with impacts that are felt across all sectors and social groups. Leaders, policy makers and other non-state actors around the world have placed climate change at the center of the international agenda and have been calling for concrete commitments under the three pillars of the 2015 Paris Agreement: mitigation, adaptation and financial commitments.

Budgeting for SDGs and Other High-Level Priorities

Posted by Scherie Nicol and Natalia Salazar^[1]

From the challenges of climate change to addressing social inequalities and improving the well-being of societies, governments are seeking ways to focus action in pursuit of these larger goals. Momentum has gathered in recent years toward a set of budgeting approaches focussed on the delivery of high level and cross-cutting priorities such as gender budgeting, green budgeting and “well-being” budgeting. Governments hope that these approaches can bring about a step change in the way these priorities are resourced, and better results achieved. SDG budgeting similarly attempts to link resource allocations to high-level goals, overcome siloes and ensure policy coherence across government.

Digitized Healthcare in India: New Tools and Applications

Posted by Ramesh Kumar Nanjundaiya^[1]

A top priority of the Indian government is to facilitate and encourage the timely manufacture and delivery of COVID-19 vaccines to citizens as well as exports to more than 50 countries across the globe. Some of these overseas supplies are donations appropriately termed as “vaccination diplomacy”. The government’s target is to ramp up its vaccination program from the present 3 million doses per day to at least 6 million per day.

Why PFM is Key for the Effective Roll Out of COVID-19 Vaccines

Posted by Hélène Barroy^[1], Federica Margini^[1], Triin Habicht^[2], Tomas Roubal^[3], Peter Cowley^[3], and Joseph Kutzin^[1]

As COVID-19 vaccines are rolled out globally, the number one question for many countries is how much it is going to cost to procure and deploy the vaccines. Currently, COVAX only covers 20% of the vaccine purchase price for 92 eligible low- and middle-income countries. While the question “how much?” is a legitimate one to consider, especially given the fiscally constrained environment, another key question— “how to?”—requires careful attention as well. Figuring out how to channel necessary funds towards the vaccine roll-out is as important as determining the cost of the roll-out itself. For this, PFM becomes highly relevant as it is what supports the last mile distribution of a predominantly publicly funded and managed public good.