Training the Trainers Program Builds Capacity in Bangladesh

Posted by Chita Marzan

With the objective of building capacity in macro-fiscal analysis and cash management in Bangladesh, a training program was conducted by the IMF Fiscal Affairs Department (FAD) and the Bangladesh Ministry of Finance from July 27 to August 5, 2013 in Dhaka. Two training modules were delivered. The module on Macro-fiscal Analysis included topics such as budget and revenue forecasting, fiscal balance and stabilization, debt dynamics, and the use of a statistical software called Econometric Views (E-Views). The Cash Management module included concepts of cash forecasting and the treasury single account, and their application to debt management and budget management.

The course was the second to take place in the country since 2012. A year ago, a first batch of Bangladesh officials mainly from the Ministry of Finance were trained jointly by FAD and the Singapore Training Institute (STI) on similar topics. Following the success of this initiative, the authorities expressed enthusiasm to train more staff in the Ministry, the Bangladesh Central Bank and the Planning Commission.

FOTEGAL: Sharing Experiences of Treasury Management in Latin America

Posted by Israel Fainboim

Latin American budget officials are members of an association (Asociacion Internacional de Presupuesto Público—ASIP) which delivers an annual international seminar and regional seminars and publishes its own journal. Recently, the countries of the region together with two multilateral donors (the Inter American Development Bank and the World Bank) joined forces with the Fiscal Affairs Department (FAD) of the IMF to set up a similar organization for state treasurers.

That is how the Government Treasury Forum of Latin American (FOTEGAL) was born in 2010. The organization was formalized in a document named the Lima Declaration and through the approval of its own statutes. A total of 16 countries are currently members of FOTEGAL (Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay) and an invitation has been extended to Brazil to join (this country has participated in several of the annual seminars). The Government of Japan (JSA) has also been a key financial supporter of the activities of FOTEGAL. In addition, the IDB is supporting the development of FOTEGAL’s website. A link to this network and many of the documents and presentations made for FOTEGAL already exists within the website of one of the government treasuries, and a separate web page is under construction.

The Philippines Leads Its Peers in Performance Budgeting

Posted by Sandeep Saxena

The Government of the Philippines’ (GoP) budget proposals for the year 2014, presented to the Congress in July, contain important performance information for every government program. For the first time, government departments and agencies have spelt out their vision, mission, target outputs that they will produce from the resources sought, and the expected performance standards in service delivery. For instance, one of the Bureau of Fire Protection’s targets is to respond within five to seven minutes to 87 percent of the more than 5,000 distress calls the Bureau expects to receive in the year. The National Police promises a minimum of 629,258 crime investigations and a 25 percent increase in the number of foot and mobile patrols. The Department of Education aims to deliver a pass rate of 84 percent in the National Achievement Test that will be taken by 12.56 million secondary school students; and the Department of Social Welfare undertakes to serve meals to more than 2.5 million schoolchildren.

This move by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) is being hailed in the country as “the single most important budgeting innovation in years”. According to media reports, the legislators are “pleasantly amused” at the detailing of information on what an agency must deliver with the use of public resources. They expect the budget scrutiny to be lengthier and the discussion on the floor of the Congress to be more meaningful. With this reform, the government has taken an important step forward in its commitment to promoting and developing a people-centric and results-based public administration.

PFM Innovations: ICGFM Issues Call for Speakers at its Upcoming Conferences

Posted by David Nummy, ICGFM Vice-President for Programs

One outcome of the global financial crisis has been recognition that Public Financial Management is critical to management of the fallout as well as to prevent future crises.   With greater attention, new approaches to the core elements of the PFM cycle have been employed and interest has grown in the experience of countries around the world in meeting the challenges of effectively managing resources in a manner that is transparent.   ICGFM will explore the innovations in PFM that have emerged as well as practices that are recognized as effective.

The International Consortium on Governmental Financial Management (ICGFM) has issued a call for speakers, panels, and presentations that address good practices in public financial management. As this topic will cover both of its upcoming conferences, proposals are solicited for both the winter conference in Washington, DC from December 9-11, 2013, and the 28^th Annual International Training Conference in Miami in May 2014.  The Winter Conference will be held at the International Monetary Fund and is conducted in partnership with the Fiscal Affairs Department (FAD).