Every Woman Counts: Gender Budgeting in G7 Countries

By PFM Blog Administrator    

Dear PFM Blog Readers,

Check out this blog post on Gender Budgeting by IMF Managing Director, Christine Lagarde, on the IMF's main blog site, IMFBlog. You may also be interested in the Board Paper, prepared by the IMF at the request of the Italian Presidency of the G7, on Gender Budgeting Issues in the G7, cited in that blog post. Many frequent PFM blog writers in the Fiscal Affairs Department contributed to the paper.

Enjoy!

Managing Budgetary Pressures

Posted by Neil Cole and Alta Folscher[1]

Budget managers are frequently confronted with changing circumstances during the fiscal year that disrupt even the best prepared budgets. Some routine pressures require no more than regular adjustments to plans, while others become chronic and have a great impact on public finances. Then there are extraordinary shocks, which can be sudden and significantly threaten budget stability and service delivery. The 2017 CABRI Conference, held in Burkina Faso in March and attended by 69 officials from 26 African countries, examined how governments can better prepare for and manage such budgetary pressures without disrupting service delivery and incurring unsustainable debt.

Investing in Children and Budget Transparency in Africa

Posted by Jean Dupraz, Vivek Ramkumar, and Matthew Cummins[1]

Africa is undergoing a seismic demographic shift. Over the next 35 years, the under-18 population will grow by more than two-thirds to reach almost 1 billion by 2050. As these children reach working age, countries across the continent can benefit from accelerated economic growth via a demographic dividend. However, realizing this potential is only possible if more and better investments are made in key child-related sectors.

The proportion of children living in monetary and non-monetary poverty remains very high across the continent. Indeed, this ongoing population growth means that there are already more income-poor children in Africa today than when the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were launched in 1990.

Coordinating the Planning and Budgeting Functions of Government

Posted by Ashni Singh[1]

Clique aqui para a Versão Portuguesa.

The IMF’s Regional Technical Assistance Center (RTAC) for Anglophone West Africa and Cabo Verde (AFRITAC West 2) recently convened a workshop to discuss the challenges of improving coordination between the strategic planning and budget preparation functions of government. with the aim of achieving better alignment between policy priorities and fiscal resource allocation.

The workshop was held during March 6-10, 2017, in Cabo Verde, and was declared open by the host country’s Minister of Finance, Olavo Correia. The closing ceremony was addressed by AFRITAC West 2’s Center Coordinator Lamin Leigh. The event was also supported by two of the IMF’s other RTACs, those for Francophone West Africa (AFRITAC West) and Southern Africa (AFRITAC South). It attracted high level participation from the macro-fiscal, planning, and budget directorates of the ministries of finance, as well as the ministries of planning and national planning agencies where they exist, from all five Anglophone West African countries as well as five Lusophone African countries.[2]

Spending Reviews in the European Union

Posted by Claude Wendling[1]

Spending reviews have become an increasingly popular tool in the European Union since the global financial crisis of 2007-08. A major policy lesson stemming from the crisis is indeed the need to enhance expenditure performance, which can be defined as the reinforced connection between funding decisions and policy priorities (shall this or that policy be funded with public money?) and subsequently between funding levels and results delivered to end-users (what is the value for public money?). Spending reviews seeking a 'smarter' expenditure allocation across national policy priorities - based on a selective and sustainable expenditure-based fiscal consolidation - appear to European policymakers as a particularly valuable instrument in this respect. A European Commission paper authored by Caroline Vandierendonck in July 2014 provides in this respect useful insights on the design, conduct and implementation of spending reviews and their development in Europe  (http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/publications/economic_paper/2014/ecp525_en.htm).

Ten Tips to Improve the Transparency of Budget Documents

Posted by Greg Rosenberg[1]

Many countries produce voluminous budget documentation, with reports that run for hundreds of pages, and thousands of pages of raw data[2]. The main documents form a verbose, jargon-heavy, disjointed collection of policies, spending programs, and irrelevant or marginally relevant details, with little analysis of macroeconomic or fiscal trends. In a few countries, the story is different. The budget documents are concise and plainly written. They focus on relevant information, with frank analysis of expenditure and revenue trends, and explain clearly how public finances are being managed.  

Producing transparent budget documents requires policy makers to explain complex concepts to a range of audiences. Doing so has tangible benefits. Clear, transparent budget documents can strengthen policy impact, fiscal planning, legislative oversight, and citizen involvement. Such reports enable policy makers to send signals about developing economic and fiscal trends, helping to shape public debate and foreshadowing future responses. 

An open budget that acknowledges economic and fiscal realities, in a way that is easily understood, supports accountability and effective budget planning. It enables civil society organizations to engage with the budget. This, in turn, strengthens the social contract between citizens and the state. And, crucially, the act of clear writing itself helps finance ministries to refine their own thinking on budget strategy and policy, leading to better and more coherent policy choices.

All of this may sound elementary, but experience suggests that it is not.

Managing Government Wages and Employment

Posted by Teresa Curristine and Mercedes Garcia-Escribano[1]

Government wage and employment policies have important social and economic implications. The government is the major employer in many countries, delivering key public services and typically spending around 25 percent of its budget on the wage bill (See Chart 1). Given its sizable budget weight, how the wage bill is managed heavily influences the sustainability of public finances, the quantity and quality of key public services, and as governments are major employers, private sector pay and employment.

How to Link SDGs to the Budget

Posted by Suren Poghosyan[1]

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were critical in presenting a global policy agenda with country-specific targets. MDG processes, however, were not well coordinated with countries’ national policies and budget processes. Ministries of finance were detached from the core dialog on MDGs, and there was a mismatch between the MDGs and budget classification systems. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have replaced the MDGs with a more comprehensive policy agenda that now covers all countries. Developing countries, however, will face challenges in effectively transforming the SDGs into national policies and budgets. How therefore to build a stronger bridge between the SDGs and countries’ budget processes?

Even if development goals are effectively transformed into sector strategies, budget decisions are based on their own set of processes and parameters. Some reports suggest that the UN’s functional classification system (COFOG) has been used to bridge budget allocations with the MDGs, but COFOG was never designed to serve that purpose. In some countries, civil society organizations (CSOs) have monitored the impact of selected MDGs on the budget. However, in most cases, finance ministries have continued their routine budget planning and execution processes with only occasional reflections on the MDG targets.

Accrual Budgeting in Kazakhstan

Posted by John Zohrab[1]

From the perspective of fiscal transparency, accrual budgeting (AB) is superior to cash budgeting, because it facilitates the management of the budget in terms of the full resource implications of policies and programs and provides a much wider set of fiscal indicators. A cash budget is managed in terms of cash flows and balances whereas, in addition, an accrual budget takes into account accrued expenses and revenues, as well as the full range of assets, and liabilities and net worth.[2]

However, implementing AB is generally perceived to entail risks and complexities. This is presumably why, starting in 1989, only a handful of countries have so far implemented it in central government: Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, New Zealand, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. It is also presumably why most countries prefer to stick with cash budgeting. So why is Kazakhstan considering the introduction of AB?[3]

Implementing the PFM Directives in WAEMU

Posted by Jérôme Bonherbe[2]

Directives[3] issued by the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) contain many provisions on public financial management (PFM). These provisions include better access to budget information, multiyear budgeting, results-oriented management, decentralized budget execution, and a new accounting and financial monitoring framework. Most of the provisions relating to public information and budget formulation came into effect in 2012. The deadline for implementing the remaining provisions, mainly on budget execution and controls, is set for 2017.

The WAEMU Commission recently carried out a self-assessment of the PFM reforms required by the Directives. This exercise used a tool prepared by the Commission that includes a range of objective, evidence-based indicators for each of the six Directives. A similar approach and tool are being employed by the CEMAC Commission for its countries[4].

Going Digital: Improving the Disclosure of Fiscal Information

Posted by Paolo de Renzio, Jorge Romero Leon, Diego de la Mora and Liliana Ruiz[1]

Some 20 years ago, putting budget information in the public domain often meant printing and carrying thick reams of paper for distribution to parliamentarians, the press and other interested actors. Nowadays, strong arms and large amounts of paper are no longer a prerequisite for budget transparency and accountability. Government finance officials simply upload information onto their ministry’s website, while journalists and civil society activists sit at their desks and access the information through their computers. Governments have also started making detailed budget information available through “transparency portals,” where large datasets are made available in searchable and downloadable formats. How are governments setting themselves up for fiscal transparency in the digital age? And how do these changes actually affect fiscal transparency and accountability? Recent research[2] carried out by the International Budget Partnership (IBP) and Fundar attempts to answer these questions.

Two New Technical Notes and Manuals

Posted by Sailendra Pattanayak and Sandeep Saxena[1]

The IMF published this week two new papers in its series of Technical Notes and Manuals (TNMs).

Projecting Expenditure Baselines in Barcelona

Posted by Jordi Baños-Rovira[1]

In recent years, Barcelona City Council has introduced a range of budget reforms to improve the efficiency of resource allocation and operational management[2]. In particular, a performance-based budgeting system (called the “Executive Budget’) has been developed, linked to the goals set in the Government’s Development Plan[3].

A key element of this new budget preparation process is the development of baseline projections of expenditure, which estimate the spending required to maintain current policies (or levels of service) for the next year, and to comply with already approved multi-year commitments. Budget requests by departments thus comprise two elements: the spending baselines, and additional resources required to finance new projects and services, and other policy changes.

Challenges of Developing MTEFs and PBB in East Africa

Posted by Kubai Khasiani[1]

The IMF’s Regional Technical Assistance Center for East Africa (AFRITAC East, AFE) organized a regional PFM workshop on “Strengthening Budgetary Institutions” in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania from 22-25 February 2016. The event was attended by 26 government officials from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, and Tanzania. The workshop reviewed the performance of AFE countries in introducing Medium-Term Expenditure Frameworks (MTEFs) and program-based budgets (PBB), and the challenges that remain. The discussions were facilitated by Richard Allen, Florence Kuteesa and Phyllis Makau (FAD experts).

Decentralization: The Fiscal Side of the Peace Agreement in Northern Mali

Posted by Marie Laure Berbach, Grégoire Rota Graziosi, Mousse Sow and Benoit Taiclet[1]

The peace agreement settled with northern Mali insurgents in 2015 includes a large fiscal decentralization component.  This reform involves the scaling up of local governments’ resources by up to one third of the country’s budgetary revenue, thus tripling local budgets within three or four years, and increasing the number of sub-national regions from 8 to 19 (two of which are desert lands).

Sector Ministries: As Important as the Finance Ministry for Good PFM!

Posted by Lena de Stigter[1] and Jennifer Moreau[2]

Post Addis Ababa, the debate on development finance focuses in large part on the generation of the necessary additional resources to support the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Improving tax systems and compliance is an important element in this regard and strongly supported by the German Development Cooperation agency GIZ. Yet, taxation is only one side of the coin. Sound public financial management (PFM), especially at the level of sector ministries, should be the other. The generation of savings through more effective and efficient budgeting and expenditure policies in sectors may be as important for countries as resource mobilization through taxes. For instance, the IMF has recently shown that there is much to gain by reducing the inefficiencies around public investment management (IMF, 06/2015, Making Public Investment more Efficient). Moreover, the Collaborative Budget Reform Initiative (CABRI), through its sector dialogues, has done important work on highlighting the possible gains of improving value-for-money in program expenditure in key parts of the public sector. Sound investment policies and development-oriented public expenditure will enhance trust of citizens in their government and increase their willingness to pay taxes. Moreover, it will have a positive impact on the socio-economic environment of a country and generally, serve as a catalyst for development. 

Does it Make any Difference? Reviewing the Impacts of Fiscal Transparency and Participation

Posted by Paolo de Renzio[1]

 Advocates of fiscal transparency and public participation in budget processes are often faced with the awkward “so what” question posed by skeptics. “It’s all good for you to say that transparency and participation are important”, the skeptical questioner asks, “but can you in fact show that they make any real difference?”.

Seychelles Moves Toward Cash-basis IPSAS

Posted by Johann Seiwald[1]

According to Seychelles’ Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) as of 2012, the government is required to prepare its financial statements in accordance with international public sector accounting standards (IPSAS). The government recently reached an important milestone on this path by producing a set of financial statements for the fiscal year 2013 which comply with many of the requirements of the cash basis IPSAS. Seychelles is a front runner among the 18 countries in Africa which have announced plans to align their accounting systems with international standards. These countries include Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe.

Why Sovereign Wealth Funds Should Not Invest at Home

 

Posted by Andrew Bauer[1]

Developing, capital-scarce countries need domestic investment. Governments in countries such as Angola, Mongolia, and Timor-Leste must invest in education, health and public infrastructure if they hope to achieve middle- or high-income status. What’s more, mineral-rich countries have access to large (yet finite) sources of income that can be used to boost domestic investment and help overcome the poverty trap. On this nearly everyone can agree.

In response to this need for domestic investment, some commentators have recently suggested that there might be opportunities for these countries’ sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) to directly invest at home. Nearly every country with significant oil, gas or mineral exports operates a SWF. Already, governments in Angola, Azerbaijan, Iran, Nigeria and Russia, for example, use their SWFs to channel money to special domestic projects.

New Governance Arrangements for the IPSAS Board

Posted by Delphine Moretti

Following a year-long consultation, the IMF-OECD-World Bank-chaired Review Group on the Governance of International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) has today issued its recommendations for strengthening the oversight of the IPSAS Board. They include the establishment of a new Public Interest Committee whose founding members will be the IMF, OECD, World Bank, and INTOSAI and a new Consultative Advisory Group comprised of producers and users of government financial statements.

As discussed several times on this blog and in the IMF’s 2012 paper on “Fiscal Transparency, Accountability, and Risk”, the global financial crisis highlighted the significant gaps and weaknesses in public sector accounting practices and underscored the need for more comprehensive, reliable, and timely financial reporting by governments. These concerns were echoed by the G-20 at their meeting in Moscow in February 2013, when they called on the IMF, World Bank, and OECD to work to improve the transparency and comparability of public sector financial reporting.

Budget Laws vs. Appropriation Acts

 

Posted by Renaud Duplay[1]

Is a government budget a forecast or an authorization? Both, of course, but ask various PFM practitioners to pick one answer first and you will see a clear divide between “macro-fiscalists” – who think forecasts first – and financial managers – who think of control and authorization first. But you may also detect some cultural divide as well: people from Westminster style countries may think forecasts first while people from continental European countries, like France, may choose authorization as the main feature of a budget.

This cultural divide, which my FAD colleague Benoit Chevauchez already discussed on a previous post on PFM taxonomy, may be linked to the various forms a budget can take as both a technical and a political object.

The OBS Tracker: A new Tool for Continuous Monitoring of Budget Transparency

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted by Paolo de Renzio¹

Based on international standards like the recently updated IMF Code of Good Practices on Fiscal Transparency, the Open Budget Survey (OBS) – carried out every two years by the International Budget Partnership (IBP) – has been providing independent and comparable data and analysis on the transparency of government budgets since 2006. Now covering over 100 countries, the OBS – and its resulting Open Budget Index – has come to be seen as an important reference for assessing the public availability and comprehensiveness of budget documents that governments produce and publish.

The Survey is based on a thorough process that takes up to 18 months to complete, and that relies on local researchers and independent peer reviews, including from the governments being assessed. Many have noted how the two-year gap between surveys does not allow for a continuous monitoring of budget transparency, and for civil society actors to keep up the pressure on governments to open up their budgets to public scrutiny. As a consequence, IBP has recently launched a new tool – the OBS Tracker – which aims to fill this gap by providing monthly updates on the publication of key budget documents by the 30 governments that are part of its pilot phase.

Accrual Budgeting in Estonia

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted by Eliko Pedastsaar

FAD recently interviewed Ivar Sikk, a Senior Advisor in the Executive Director’s Office of the World Bank, and a former Deputy Secretary (Budget) in the Estonian Ministry of Finance, about the government’s decision to introduce accrual budgeting.

Why has Estonia decided to adopt accrual budgeting (AB)?

Macroeconomic and fiscal pressures are likely to remain or grow over the medium term as a result of an aging population, the challenge of maintaining a liberal trade policy, and ensuring a favorable investment and business climate. Maintaining or increasing the quantity and quality of public services will become more and more difficult in this environment of restrained resources, and requires new approaches to budgeting and fiscal policy. The government’s decision to introduce AB will transform the budget from a statement of flows to a statement of fiscal impact, and will help identify the true cost of public services. The preconditions for the introduction of AB are good. Estonia is a small country with solid budgetary institutions and a strong track record of implementing budgetary reforms.

What are the expected benefits of this change, and the challenges likely to be faced?

 

Value for Money in African Public Spending

Posted by Philipp Krause¹

The Collaborative Africa Budget Reform Initiative (CABRI) recently brought together 75 delegates from 24 countries for its annual conference in Johannesburg. The topic this year was “value for money in public spending”. CABRI is the peer-led network of African senior budget officials, which aims to improve African public finance management through peer exchange and support. It is being led by its member countries and supported by a small secretariat based in Pretoria.

Budget Institutions Matter

Posted by Holger van Eden

Most economists would agree that institutions help shape economic and fiscal outcomes. But which institutions really matter, and to what extent, is less clear. A recent IMF Board Paper and annex featuring country evaluations produced by the Fiscal Affairs Department, which was presented today here in Washington, shines a light on the G-20 countries’ efforts to strengthen their budget institutions in the wake of the global financial crisis, and evaluates their impact on fiscal policy. In particular, it asks whether strong budget institutions helped these countries during the 2010–13 period to cope with the substantial fiscal consolidation needs that arose after the Great Recession. The evidence suggests that these institutions have indeed been important.

PEMPAL Meeting on Results-Based Monitoring and Evaluation

 Posted by Gelardina Prodani and Hakan Ay¹

From March 3-6, 2014, 20 countries representing the PEMPAL Budget Community of Practice (BCOP) in cooperation with the Ministry of Finance of Turkey gathered in Antalya, Turkey for BCOP’s annual plenary meeting.² The agenda focused on country experiences with results-based monitoring and evaluation (RBME). David Shand, an international expert in this area, acted as the facilitator for the meeting.

The meeting was formally opened by Mr. Ilhan Hatipoglu, the Director General of Budget and Fiscal Control in the Ministry of Finance of Turkey, and Mr. Martin Raiser, Director of the World Bank in Turkey.

How to Decide on the Budget: Set Menu or à la Carte?

Posted by Renaud Duplay

The recent debate over the United States federal budget, which led to a partial government shutdown, was at times hard to follow. Behind the debate over health care reform, lay also a more procedural struggle over the way to prepare the budget on Capitol Hill. Indeed, part of the butting of heads has resulted from a disagreement over what to negotiate on, in the first place. The US Constitution is relatively light on how the budget should be passed, so many legal options were considered in recent weeks, including: passing a continuing resolution to fund federal services and agencies; passing a continuing resolution linked with a defunding of the Affordable Care Act – Obamacare; funding individual federal agencies on a vote by vote basis; funding individual programs of federal agencies given expected adverse impacts of the shutdown, such as on cancer research trials. These options were, to make it even more complicated, linked to various stances on the federal government debt ceiling: separate decision-making, a linked agreed increase, or what resulted, a temporary suspension. In all this a new federal budget for the new budget year was not on the table. This is now on Congress’ to do list for the next three months.  

All of this is possible because the US federal budget works a little bit like ordering à la carte in a restaurant: you can skip the main course if you don’t feel like it and still end up enjoying the meal (or, more often, not really). Indeed, implementing a deal over the US federal budget requires selecting from a different menu of votes depending on the content of the deal. In addition, authority to spend can be given in various ways: either by appropriations bills – for federal agencies’ operating costs for instance – or by specific legislation that grants authority to spend on entitlement programs until this very legislation is modified or repealed. Those programs are called “mandatory” which by the way sets the tone for any future discussion on them.

A PFM View of the New French “Loi Organique”

Posted by Benoit Chevauchez[1]

France is now equipped with a fiscal rule. The organic budget law adopted last December[2] was the French government’s response to the obligations set out in the European Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance (TSCG) signed in March 2012. The Treaty resulted from a process initiated in December 2011 by the European Council, in the wake of the euro crisis. The basic idea of the Treaty is that “Euro zone countries” should adopt national fiscal rules in order to integrate in their own legislation the Maastricht principles of fiscal discipline that are set out in the European treaties.

Before the new treaty was ratified, the French national budget law did not address issues of fiscal sustainability. The French Constitution of 1958 was silent in this regard, even if an amendment adopted in 2008 had introduced the concept of “budget balance over the medium term”, but only as a theoretical principle without any operational impact. Similarly, the 2001 LOLF (loi organique relative aux lois de finances), and its predecessor the 1959 Organic Ordinance, wholly ignored sustainability issues.

In practice, France has had a rather modest record in terms of fiscal sustainability: its EU stability programs have seldom been respected, its macroeconomic assumptions have been frequently optimistic, and its debt level has steadily increased up to 90 percent of GDP. Thus, for France, the adoption of the new organic law (OL) is an important initiative, that might also mark a turning point in its fiscal tradition.

Twenty-one Countries Meet in Albania to Discuss Program Budgeting Reforms

Posted by Gelardina Prodani, Ministry of Finance, Albania and Konstantin Krityan, Ministry of Finance Armenia

As Chair and Deputy Chair of the Public Expenditure Management Peer Assisted Learning (PEMPAL)[1] Budget Community of Practice (BCOP), we would like to inform you about an exciting meeting that was held recently in Tirana, Albania on program budgeting.

From February 25^th to 28^th 2013, the Ministry of Finance of Albania hosted 81 participants from 21 PEMPAL member countries from across Europe and Central Asia (ECA). As suggested by our BCOP members from last year’s plenary meeting,[2] the agenda focused on technical aspects of program budgeting and performance measurement. The three main sessions of the meeting covered international approaches and country cases in (i) design of programs and performance measures, (ii) budget documentation, and (iii) performance monitoring and evaluation.

Представители двадцати одной страны встретились в Албании, чтобы обсудить переход на программное бюджетирование

Авторы: Джеральдина Продани, Министерство финансов, Албания, и Константин Критян, Министерство финансов, Армения

В качестве председателя и заместителя председателя Практикующего сообщества по бюджету (В СоР) Сети по взаимному обучению и обмену опытом в управлении государственными финансами (PEMPAL)[1] мы хотели бы проинформировать вас о встрече, которая недавно состоялась в Тиране, (Албания), по теме программного бюджетирования.

С 25 по 28 февраля 2013 года Министерство финансов Албании приняло в общей сложности 81 участника из 21 страны-члена PEMPAL из Европы и Центральной Азии (ЕЦА).  Как и было предложено членами нашего Практикующего сообщества по бюджету (BCOP) на пленарном заседании в прошлом году,[2] повестка дня фокусировалась на технических аспектах бюджетного финансирования программ и на оценке эффективности работы.  Три основных сессии заседания были посвящены международным подходам и практическим примерам стран в следующих областях: (i) дизайн программ и критерии эффективности работы, (ii) бюджетная документация, и (iii) мониторинг и оценка эффективности программ.

How Can the Pace of Budget Transparency Be Increased? Examining the Results of the Open Budget Survey 2012

Posted by Vivek Ramkumar

The International Budget Partnership (IBP) and the World Bank Institute (WBI) are pleased to invite you to join practitioners in the fields of development and fiscal management in a discussion on how to increase budget transparency and participation around the world. The discussion will include a presentation of the results of the IBP’s latest round of the Open Budget Survey and then focus on indentifying innovative and practical suggestions for rapidly improving country performance on the Survey.

Date: 5 February 2013
Time: 9.30-11 am (Breakfast will be served from 9 am)
Venue: IFC Auditorium, 2121 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington D.C.

There is growing interest in the role of open budgeting systems in development. An increasing body of evidence shows that the best way to manage public funds efficiently and equitably is through budget systems that are transparent, inclusive, and monitored through independent oversight institutions. Recent research studies also show that transparency can help to attract easier and cheaper international credit and thereby increase public revenues. On the other hand, lack of fiscal transparency can undermine fiscal discipline,increase borrowing costs, and promote opportunities for corruption and other leakages.

Simplifying Budget Documents – Time for an International Standard?

Posted by Camille Karamaga

Improving the quality of budget documentation lies at the heart of many reforms aimed at enhancing understanding of the content of the budget estimates as well as fostering transparency and accountability. Some budget laws prescribe a minimum set of documents to accompany the budget estimates. These may include, for example, reports on: (i) the medium-term macroeconomic forecast; (ii) fiscal policies and public expenditure trends; (ii) medium-term forecasts of government revenues, expenditures, debt, and the fiscal balance; (iii) medium-term resource ceilings; (iv) government guarantees, contingent liabilities and other fiscal risks; (v) spending on expenditure programs and projects by sector; and (vi) projections of donor aid flows. In countries with a Westminster tradition, the budget speech includes much of this information, but additional documents may be presented to the parliament.

Improving the content and quantity of fiscal information is not the same, however, as improving its quality or transparency. More does not always mean better or clearer. Indeed, it often means the reverse. Governments tend to respond to demands for information from the parliament, financial markets, NGOs and ordinary citizens by producing more and more data, often in unprocessed form. This may get them off the hook of public “accountability”, but places them squarely on another hook, accusations of information overload and obfuscation.

The design of a strategic planning framework, medium-term budget frameworks and program budgets has led to a proliferation of detailed information, performance indicators, and monitoring and evaluation reports. Mountains of annual budget books are produced with separate estimates volumes being prepared by each line ministry. The excessive detail contained in the budget estimates weakens their usefulness as raw material for discussion by parliamentary committees. Nor are they meaningful to the general public. In short, much of the  information produced by the government easily becomes a “data cemetery” which contributes little to the decision-making process or enlightened public debate.

Following the Money: Examining the Evidence on Pro-poor Budgeting

Posted by Rebecca Simson[1]

ODI’s Centre for Aid and Public Expenditure has recently initiated a work stream on pro-poor budgeting to investigate how governments choose to spend public funds and what this tells us about allocative efficiency.  In 2001 Adrian Fozzard published a paper on this topic, which presented approaches to resource allocation in the public sector and their implications for pro-poor budgeting. A decade on, and after billions of dollars spent to further pro-poor priorities in developing countries, have we learnt anything new about how to allocate public funds?

Our first background paper, Following the money: examining the evidence on pro-poor budgeting, explores what we do know about the influence of the poverty reduction agenda on resource allocation in developing countries. The paper goes on to propose some possible research topics that could begin to evaluate whether spending patterns have in fact changed in systematic ways in response to the high growth and falling poverty experienced over the past 15 years.

What if… Legislators Approve—and Execute—the Budget?

Posted by Greg Horman

A practice more or less universal across all legislative assemblies is to provide members—MPs, for short—with allowances to enable them to represent their constituents effectively. Typical allowances cover expenses associated with staying in close contact with voters, such as travel to MPs’ constituencies, operating local offices, and communicating through mailings and various media. Although they are the cause of the occasional scandal, debate about these allowances is more over the scope of costs that they cover and up to what ceiling, than over the principle that they are necessary in the first instance. Frequently, these allowances—representing spending by the legislature, not the executive—are outside the government’s budget.

What is uncommon, however, is the situation where MPs themselves administer and distribute funds from the government’s budget.

The Solomon Islands is a case in point and an example of this modality of budget execution taken to an extreme. Depending on the calculation, perhaps 30 percent to 50 percent of the development budget in the Solomon Islands is represented by “constituent development funds.” These are appropriated funds that are directly allocated to and held by MPs for distribution to their constituents. In practice, the funds are deposited into MPs’ own bank accounts, and there is little transparency or accountability for how MPs manage or distribute this money from the public purse. Nor is there any analysis of the impact or effectiveness of the use of the funds. Moreover, expenditure in the development-budget that was originally appropriated to ministries is occasionally re-programmed into constituent development funds. Staff of the Ministry of Finance and donors—grants account for around two fifths of total revenue—agree that this practice undermines sound public financial management.

Recent Meetings of the PEMPAL Network in Europe and Central Asia

Posted by Deanna Aubrey, PEMPAL PFM Adviser

The three ‘communities of practice’ of budget, treasury, and internal audit of the Public Expenditure Management Peer Assisted Learning (PEMPAL) network had a series of meetings in the first six months of 2012. PEMPAL covers up to 22 governments in the Europe and Central Asia region and brings practitioners together regularly to discuss common priority issues in PFM reform. PEMPAL is supported by the World Bank, Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), the Russian Federation, and OECD SIGMA.

Members of Treasury Community of Practice (TCoP) gathered in Tbilisi, Georgia from February 27-29. Treasury experts from 10 countries met to learn more about Georgia’s PFM reforms implemented by the State Treasury Service, who co-hosted the meeting. The workshop was an opportunity to exchange experiences in modernizing national treasury systems particularly related to issues of integration of external financing. Participants also had the opportunity to visit the customs clearance zone of the Ministry of Finance in Lilo district in Tbilisi as an example of modernization public services through information technology. More information can be found at http://www.pempal.org/event/read/55 and in IMF’s PFM blog at http://blog-pfm.imf.org/pfmblog/2012/04/georgian-state-treasury-hosts-workshop-on-treasury-and-external-financing-reforms.html

Fifty-seven participants from Ministries of Finance from 18 ECA countries from Budget Community of Practice (BCOP) met in Bohinj, Slovenia on March 27-29 to exchange experiences in program budgeting as part of the Budget Community of Practice (BCOP) work program. Country cases of France, Australia, Poland, and Slovenia were showcased and reform progress shared by Kazakhstan, Russian Federation, Armenia, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Most PEMPAL member countries have implemented elements of program budgeting including defining and identifying programs, formulating program objectives, and selecting performance information. However, the quality of performance information remains generally poor, is in many cases not systematically monitored, and has limited influence on budget decision making. Countries acknowledge that the reform process is long and ongoing and are planning on exchanging information and meeting more on this topic in the future. More information can be found at http://www.pempal.org/event/read/58 and in IMF’s PFM blog at http://blog-pfm.imf.org/pfmblog/2012/05/program-budgeting-is-on-the-reform-agenda-across-europe-and-central-asia.html

Australia’s Changing Budgeting Framework – Accrual or Cash?

Posted by Tim Youngberry[i]

There have been a number of articles on this blog that pose a question on whether the Australian Government has a cash-based budgeting framework or an accrual-based budgeting framework, or some sort of hybrid mix.  Hopefully, this contribution will provide a degree of clarification.

In the 1999-2000 Budget, the Australian Government moved to a full accrual accounting and budgeting framework.  The key features of the framework when implemented included:

• A shift to an outcomes/outputs framework;
• Introducing accrual concepts into the Budget, often referred to as accrual budgeting;
• Applying a capital use charge on line ministries to reflect the cost of the use of “capital assets” and to provide an incentive for improved asset management;
• Introducing devolved banking arrangements so that each agency had its own transactional banker and paying interest to agencies on accumulated cash balances to encourage better cash flow management; and
• Funding agencies on the basis of full accrual expenses (including depreciation) – otherwise known as accrual appropriations.

Budget Reform: Borrowing a Leaf from the Accounting Profession’s Book

Posted by Florence Kuteesa

 Since the 19^th century, there has been a sustained effort to develop and disseminate professional standards and qualifications in accounting. In stark contrast, there are currently no internationally accepted standards for budget preparation. Could this absence of a professional foundation for budget preparation  help explain the short lifespan of many reforms that have failed to take root in budget departments and bear fruit in the form of more credible and predictable budgets, especially in low income countries (LICs)? Is it time for the budget reformers to borrow a leaf from the accounting profession’s book?

It is of concern that national budget preparation reforms in many LICs have failed to deliver intended objectives. Budget practices continue to be based on a patchwork of traditions and procedures that have evolved slowly. There are marked disparities between the principles and practices of budgeting within countries, as well as large variations across countries. New ideas and techniques of planning and budgeting are tried but, all too frequently, are abandoned or overtaken by some other initiative making it even more difficult to build strong foundation for budgeting. Short-lived budget reforms have lead to poor outcomes and dissatisfaction among staff. The continuous search for more appropriate budgeting structures and procedures is demonstrated by recent debates among the senior budget officers’ networks, in Asia, Middle East and North Africa, and Africa.

Burundi – L’expérience positive du nouveau dispositif de gestion des ressources extérieures

Posté par Jean Pierre Nguenang[1]

A la faveur de la rénovation récente du cadre juridique des finances publiques (FP), le pays a mis en place un nouveau dispositif de gestion des ressources extérieures, le budget d’affectation spéciale (BAS). S’inscrivant dans le cadre de la déclaration de Paris 2005 sur l’efficacité de l’aide, ce dispositif concilie l’utilisation des nouvelles procédures nationales, tant en budgétisation qu’en exécution, avec les besoins des bailleurs. Avec la mise en place d’un fonds commun de l’éducation (FCE) doté de financements de certains bailleurs de fond pour les budgets 2011 et 2012, une première expérience du BAS s’avère positive. Cette mise en œuvre du premier BAS préfigure l’introduction progressive pour le budget général des dispositions de modernisation adoptées dans le cadre rénové des FP.

Une budgétisation du BAS qui améliore l’exhaustivité et la transparence du budget de l’Etat

Les fonds des bailleurs accordés à l’Etat, à l’exception des appuis budgétaires directs, sont intégrés si les bailleurs le souhaitent en recettes et en dépenses au budget général de l’Etat. Une annexe aux lois de finances donne le détail de l’origine et de l’emploi de ces fonds. Toutefois, un BAS peut être créé par groupes de projet ou groupes de programmes d’investissement, réunissant les financements d’un ou de plusieurs bailleurs de fonds. Rattaché au ministère sectoriel principalement responsable de sa mise en œuvre, le BAS peut être abondé par un crédit budgétaire au titre de la contrepartie nationale.

Burundi – Success with the New Mechanism for Managing External Resources

Posted by Jean Pierre Nguenang[1]

As part of the recent reform of the legal framework governing public finances, Burundi has introduced a new mechanism for managing external resources, a special earmarks budget (BAS). This mechanism, which is in line with the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, balances the use of the national procedures, both in budgeting and execution, with the needs of donors. The initial experience with a BAS - in the form of the establishment of an Education Funding Pool (FCE) financed by certain donors for the 2011 and 2012 budgets – has been encouraging and marks the first step in the gradual introduction for the general budget of the modernization measures included in the updated public finance framework.

Inclusion of the BAS in the budget improves the coverage and transparency of the government budget

The funds granted by donors to the government, with the exception of direct budgetary assistance, are included under revenue and expenditure in the general budget of the government if the donors so wish. An annex to the budget law provides a breakdown of the origin and use of the funds. However, a BAS may be created for a group of projects or group of investment programs, combining the financing from one or more donors. The BAS may be supplemented by a budgetary allocation, which constitutes the national counterpart. The BAS comes under the sectoral ministry, which has primary responsibility for its implementation.

Accounting and the Budget Framework

Posted by Julie Cooper

For decades the debate has raged on about the applicability for government of what is often referred to as private sector accounting methodology.  Those who argue against its use in government offer up the differences in management focus between the private and public sectors to support their position. They argue that because the private sector is focused on profit generation the underlying concepts of accounting are not valid for government purposes. This argument is simplistic and fails to recognize the overarching purpose of all accounting systems.

Accounting is an information and measurement system that identifies, records, and communicates relevant, reliable, and comparable information about an organization’s activities. Providing information about how an organization performs is an important aim of accounting. This is true for both private and public sectors. Another similarity between the two sectors is that they both focus on the efficient allocation of resources to realize their goals. The difference between these two sectors lay in how that information is reported and used not the accounting per se.

Les budgets nationaux au service du développement et de la réduction de la pauvreté

Posté par Mohamed Moindze

Se voulant résolument pragmatique et orienté vers les nouvelles finances publiques, l’ouvrage «Les budgets nationaux au service du développement et de la réduction de la pauvreté »  édité, en janvier 2012, est centré sur la budgétisation des politiques de développement et de réduction de la pauvreté dans les pays en développement de tradition francophone.

L’ouvrage se veut également exhaustif en proposant une vision d’ensemble des questions relatives à l’élaboration des budgets nationaux basés sur les politiques publiques. Il est composé de deux parties. La première traite des stratégies globales et sectorielles dans leurs différents aspects de diagnostic, d’élaboration, de costing et de suivi en se basant sur les stratégies de croissance et  de réduction de la pauvreté développées par les pays en développant.

National Budgets that Meet the Needs of Development and Poverty Reduction

Posted by Mohamed Moindze

With its resolutely pragmatic focus on the latest developments in public finance, Les budgets nationaux au service du développement et de la réduction de la pauvreté [National budgets that meet the needs of development and poverty reduction] (published in January 2012) addresses the budgeting of development and poverty-reduction policies in developing Francophone countries.

This publication also provides a comprehensive overview of issues relevant to preparing national budgets based on public policies. The text comes in two parts. The first part deals with the various aspects of global and sectoral strategies (diagnostic assessment, preparation, costing, and monitoring), predicated on the growth and poverty-reduction strategies formulated by developing countries.

Program Budgeting Is on the Reform Agenda Across Europe and Central Asia

Posted by Deanna Aubrey, PEMPAL PFM Adviser

Ministries of Finance from 18 Europe and Central Asia (ECA) countries met from March 27-29, 2012 at Lake Bohinj, in Slovenia, [1] to exchange experiences in program budgeting. The meeting was attended by 57 members of the Budget Community of Practice (BCOP) of the Public Expenditure Management Peer Assisted Learning (PEMPAL) network.[2] Presentations were delivered by the World Bank, IMF, and GIZ with reforms showcased from guest speakers from France, Australia, Slovenia, and Poland.

The World Bank clarified the terminology given the wide variety of terms in use (e.g., program budgeting, performance budgeting, results-based budgeting). Program budgeting applies to cases where expenditure is classified in the budget by objectives (outcomes and outputs) rather than solely by economic categories (i.e., inputs such as salaries) and organizational category. Performance budgeting (or performance-informed budgeting) refers to a wider set of initiatives intended to strengthen the links between the funds provided and the results achieved through ensuring performance information is used in resource allocation decision making. Program and performance budgeting reforms should, therefore, provide information in a way that informs choices about spending alternatives and should improve transparency and accountability of government.[3]

Budgetary Reforms in South Asia

Extracts from a Project Report by Author on ‘Budgetary Reforms in South Asia’ Sponsored by the Indian Council of Social Science Research

Posted by Udaya Pant

Afghanistan

As a result of the Making Budget Work (MBW) and Making Budget and Air Work (MBAW) projects, budgets are now prepared on time and increasingly reflect the priorities of the Afghan National Development Strategy (ANDS) and the provincial needs. Budget officers from the project assist the line ministries in formulating and submitting the budget proposals on time and in accordance with national and ministerial policies and priorities.

Program and provincial budgeting were introduced in Afghanistan from fiscal year 2007. Progress on these has been slow, yet steady. The provincial budgeting pilot was to cover all 34 provinces by 2011. The program budgeting pilot covered 17 ministries by 2011. Each Ministry has formed a Program Budget Implementation Team, and training sessions on program budgeting have been delivered to all of these teams. The program and provincial budgeting pilots have improved budget formulation processes, increased transparency in government expenditures and ensured the foundation for increased inclusion of the provinces in the national budget formulation and implementation process, increasing equity in the distribution of resources across the country.

Designing “virementally”-friendly budgets

Posted by Sami Ylaoutinen

If you didn’t get the joke in the title, you’re probably part of the 99.99 percent of the population whose favorite topic is not public financial management. If you did, congratulations!, that’s why you’re reading this blog. Virements, the authority to reallocate budget appropriations, are important tools to introduce flexibility in government budgets. Why this flexibility is necessary, and why increasingly countries are moving to a situation where virements are less needed, I will discuss in this post.

A budget is a mechanism though which governments try to achieve several objectives simultaneously: spending the right amount of money (maintaining aggregate fiscal discipline), spending it where politicians want it to be spent (facilitating a strategic allocation of expenditure), and spending it to achieve maximum benefit for the population (using resources to most efficiently produce the desired outputs).

As has been painfully clear during the past few years, we live in a world filled with uncertainties. Budgets are clearly not isolated from the effects of this uncertainty, and therefore there is often a need to make adjustments to the budget approved by the parliament in order to achieve the objectives, or at least some of them, mentioned above.

Ho, Ho, Ho……..Strategic Budgeting is here!

Posted by Martin Bowen

Straight from the North Pole a new, promising approach to budget planning is discussed by CARTAC advisor Martin Bowen that could help countries with limited resources and capacities get a grip on their public finances using elements of more advanced and complex reforms usually only seen in advanced economies.  

Caribbean countries have been hit particularly hard by the downturn in US economic activity following the global recession. The resulting decline in revenues has seen a dramatic deterioration in the fiscal balances of many of these countries leading to significant increases in borrowing and debt. Countries have recognised that the level of their fiscal deficits and borrowing is not sustainable in the longer term and that correcting fiscal imbalances requires strong measures both on the revenue and expenditure side. In support, the IMF’s regional technical assistance (TA) centre in the Caribbean (CARTAC) has been providing extensive TA to member countries across a range of PFM areas including macroeconomic analysis, revenue forecasting, budget planning and preparation and treasury management.  

In particular, over the last two years, CARTAC has assisted a number of countries to develop and implement revised budget planning processes that support both strengthened fiscal discipline and better value for money from the increasingly scarce budget resources available. The approach to reform has focused on getting the basics right first. Traditional approaches to budget reform – multiyear budgeting, output based and accrual budgeting – have been particularly difficult to implement in developing countries and the development landscape is littered with failed reform strategies. This post suggests that a major reason for this failure is that, too often, development partners have attempted to transplant developed countries’ sophisticated budget management processes and systems into countries with very limited resources and within unrealistic timeframes.  

Liberia Budget Reflection Workshop: Laying the Foundation for a Medium-Term Budget Framework

Posted by Kubai Khasiani, Steve Gurr, and Florence Kuteesa

Liberia is set to introduce a medium-term budget framework starting July 2012. The government of Liberia—with support of a joint team of IMF staff and the UK ODI’s Budget Strengthening Initiative—conducted a workshop in August 2011 to discuss implementation issues and challenges, chart a way forward, and obtain commitment from the various government institutions and stakeholders. The workshop was attended by officials from a wide variety of government institutions and generated lively debates as participants came together and candidly shared their experience. A set of recommendations was agreed at the end of the workshop, which would enhance cooperation and political commitment from all parties and facilitate the consultative process.

The introduction of a medium-term budget framework (MTBF)[1] by the government of Liberia, starting in the fiscal year 2012/13 budget, is stipulated in the 2009 Public Financial Management Act. The provisions of the Act set new challenges for the Ministry of Finance (MoF), line ministries, and development partners. The reform implication(s)—such as mandates and responsibilities of the various actors, and coordination perspectives—formed the focus of a five-day budget process reflection workshop held in Monrovia during August 29 and September 2, 2011. The workshop, organised by the MoF and facilitated by a joint IMF /ODI[2] technical assistance team, allowed an exchange of views between representatives of the ministries responsible for finance and planning on the one hand, and spending agencies on the other, on the potential challenges and prerequisites for a sustained reform implementation. The workshop was attended by 175 officials from the MoF, the Ministry of Planning and Economic Affairs (MoPEA), as well as line ministries and agencies across the government of Liberia.

The Political Economy of Budget Reforms in Aid-Dependent Countries: Domestic and External Factors Shaping Success

Posted by Paolo de Renzio, Senior Research Fellow, International Budget Partnership and Research Associate, Global Economic Governance Programme, University of Oxford

The quality of governance and institutions is increasingly seen as a fundamental factor in shaping the development prospects of poor countries. As a consequence, donor agencies have increasingly allocated resources to providing support for improving governance standards in such countries. Their interventions are based on the assumption that, through a combination of financial and technical assistance, they can provide better incentives for reform and affect the quality of institutions in positive ways. Despite this existing consensus, research on how institutions develop and change over time is still incipient, especially in developing countries. Research on how donors’ influence affects governance trajectories and processes of institutional change in aid-dependent countries is even more scarce.

A paper recently published by the Global Economic Governance Programme at the University of Oxford investigates the domestic and external factors affecting the outcomes of reforms aimed at improving the quality of government budget institutions across a group of 16 aid-dependent countries. Government budgets are a key area of government action, through which policy objectives are chosen and acted upon, and the necessary resources are collected, allocated and spent. They have also become a crucial area being promoted by donors, backed by an increase in funding for technical assistance from US$ 170 million in 1997 to US$ 1.6 billion in 2007), covering a range of initiatives aimed at strengthening the rules and procedures which underpin budget processes. How has such external assistance worked? Were donors able to ‘buy’ better governance? What other factors shaped the outcomes of budget reforms? These are the key questions that the paper seeks to answer.

Parliamentary Powers and Capacities

Posted by Mohamed Moindze, international consultant

The budget is the instrument used to implement the most important public policies. It affects the lives of all citizens. However, the budgetary process has for many years been under the exclusive control of government. Yet there is no way to achieve good governance of public finances (needed to implement public policies) without effective external control of public finances. In the past, the public’s involvement in the budgetary process (as well as the involvement of parliaments) was not considered useful. Some suggested that such participation could be dangerous since it might undermine a country’s budgetary stability by sacrificing the macroeconomic equilibria.

Increasingly over the last twenty years or so, the developing countries have been undertaking courageous reforms to allow national parliaments to play the eminent role that constitutions grant them in the management of public affairs. This transition is occurring in the context of a general trend toward democratization and good governance. This increased role of parliaments consists of debating the broad outlines of the course that countries wish to take, thus helping to define them, to enact laws, to allocate resources to government for implementing policies, and to control their application.

Note de présentation du document sur le contrôle parlementaire

Affiché par Mohamed Moindze, consultant international

Le budget est l’instrument de mise en œuvre des politiques publiques le plus important. Il affecte la vie de tous les citoyens. Pourtant, le processus budgétaire a été, pendant très longtemps, sous le contrôle exclusif du gouvernement. Or, il ne saurait y avoir de bonne gouvernance des finances publiques (qui est nécessaire pour la mise en œuvre des politiques publiques) sans contrôle externe efficace des finances publiques. L’implication du public dans le processus budgétaire (et même des parlements) n’était, dans le passé, pas considérée comme utile. Certains avançaient qu’une telle participation pouvait être dangereuse puisqu’elle pouvait saper la stabilité budgétaire d’un pays en sacrifiant les équilibres macroéconomiques.

Depuis près de vingt ans, et de façon croissante, les pays en voie de développement engagent des réformes courageuses pour permettre aux parlements nationaux de jouer le rôle éminent que les constitutions leur accordent dans la gestion des affaires publiques. Ce mouvement se place dans le cadre d’une tendance générale à la démocratisation et à la bonne gouvernance. Ce rôle accrû des parlements consiste à débattre des grandes orientations des pays et à contribuer ainsi à les définir, à adopter les lois, à allouer des ressources aux gouvernements pour la mise en œuvre des politiques, et en contrôler l’application.