Implementing Cutting-Edge Reforms in Financial Reporting

Posted by John Stanford[1]

The Fiscal Affairs Division of the IMF, the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (IPSASB) and the Governance Global Practice Division of the World Bank co-hosted a one-day seminar in Washington in March 2019 on “Leveraging Government Financial Reporting for Fiscal Policymaking and the Management of Public Wealth”.

Life at the Sharp End – Controlling Public Spending

Posted by Bryn Welham, Sierd Hadley and Mark Miller[1]

A former chair of the US Federal Reserve once wrote in relation to setting interest rates that it is the job of central bankers to take away the punch bowl just as the party gets going.  Budget officers – staff in finance ministries who supervise the in-year spending of line ministries – also have a similarly thankless task: making sure that just the right amount of punch is available as promised, but no more and no less.  A recent publication by the ODI looks at the critically important role of budget officers in the UK, the Netherlands, Malaysia, Slovenia, and Myanmar.

From Fiscal Transparency to Social Impact

Posted by the GIFT Coordination Team[1]

We are frequently confronted with the question: how relevant is fiscal transparency for improving public spending? There is no easy answer to this question, as there is no easy or unique path to transforming fiscal transparency into good social outcomes. But there is evidence that transparency can be a stepping stone to improving the quality of spending and accountability for the use of public resources (see de Renzio and Wehner 2015). The following diagram displays GIFT’s theory of change which links fiscal transparency to improved social economic and environmental results.

Building Capacity to Perform: A Strategy for the U.S. Federal Government

Posted by Steve Redburn[1]

Governments around the world increasingly employ a growing body of evidence about performance to inform their budget and policy choices and to implement those choices.  However, most of the routines established for this focus on the top leadership.  To fully exploit the opportunities offered by performance information, it is important to engage operating program managers and their staffs at all levels of the bureaucracy.