see also...

top stories

• Managing government expenditure, published by the Asian Development Bank
• This is a comprehensive manual, with a deliberate operational thrust, covering the entire public expenditure management cycle - from multiyear expenditure programming and budget formulation through budget execution, audit and evaluation. The approach is largely a synthesis of the literature in this area and of international experience, with a view to a pragmatic assessment of the benefits, costs, risks and implementation requirements for different budgetary practices in different country circumstances.
• Public expenditure management toolkit
• This toolkit is currently being developed by staff at the World Bank. The toolkit provides an approach to assessing public expenditure institutional ('rules of the game') arrangements. It focuses on the three levels of expenditure outcome: aggregate fiscal discipline; strategic and intersectoral allocations; and operational efficiency and service delivery.
• Understanding and reforming public expenditure management, DfID (UK), 2001
• These guidelines have been written for governance advisers and economists within the Department for International Development (DFID). However, officials in other development agencies and in developing or transitional countries may also find them useful. Their objective is to provide a coherent approach, a set of basic principles, and some diagnostic tools. The reader, however, will need to learn how to apply the principles to particular contexts. There is limited coverage of the audit of public finances.
• Systematic weaknesses of budget management in Anglophone Africa - IMF
• A summary of common weaknesses in public-sector financial management found in English-speaking African countries.
• Public procurement: lessons from Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda
• This paper presents a comparative analysis of the public procurement systems in these three East African countries. In response both to domestic and international pressures, these countries have recently undertaken important initiatives to make their public procurement systems more efficient and transparent, in line with international procurement guidelines.
• The impact of cash budgets on poverty reduction in Zambia : a case study of the conflict between well-intentioned macroeconomic policy and service delivery to the poor
• World Bank Research Working Paper 2914, October 2002. In recent years the accountability of several African governments has been undermined by the introduction of systems of cash budgeting. The parliament agrees an annual budget, but the key decision point is when the ministry of finance actually releases the cash to the individual ministries, departments or agencies. The result of these decisions can be that the actual expenditure out-turn is significantly different from the original authorised budget.
• Budget reporting
• IFAC, March 2004. A research report, prepared by Dr. Jesse Hughes, commissioned by the International Federation of Accountants IFAC Public Sector Committee (PSC), considers best practices in budget formulation and reporting under differing budget models and government administrative arrangements, and examines whether the development of an International Public Sector Accounting Standard (IPSAS) on budget reporting falls within the PSC's mandate. Most governments prepare and issue as public documents, or otherwise make publicly available, their annual financial budgets. The budget documents are widely distributed and promoted. They reflect the financial characteristics of the government's plans for the forthcoming period. Monitoring and reporting on budget execution is essential for measuring compliance with Parliamentary (or similar) authorisation. Making budget data publicly available is necessary to enable transparent reporting of the government's financial intentions and of its use of taxes.
• Technical papers
• The website of International Management Consultants Ltd (IMCL) includes a range of useful technical papers on: Public sector financial management; Implementing and auditing integrated financial management systems; Pro-poor financial management; and Organising an office of the auditor-general.

Back to top