PREM Notes

176 items available

Permanent URI for this collection

http://hdl.handle.net/10986/9424

This note series is intended to summarize good practices and key policy findings on poverty reduction and economic management (PREM) topics.

Items in this collection

Now showing 1 - 10 of 73

The Current State of Fiscal Transparency: Norms, Assessment, and Country Practices

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-09) Petrie, Murray

Over the last 15 years, there has been a growing effort globally to promote fiscal transparency, reflecting both that the public has a right to information, and that transparency contributes to more equitable, efficient, and effective fiscal policies. However, the overall state of budget transparency is poor: measured against the Open Budget Index, the national budgets of 77 countries, home to half the world’s population, fail to meet basic standards of budget transparency. Efforts are underway to improve the coherence of the multiplicity of standards, strengthen the assessment of country practices, and to address important gaps in the normative architecture, such as norms for legislative oversight and direct public participation. Many governments could rapidly improve transparency by publishing reports they already produce internally, which points to the need to strengthen incentives for governments to be more transparent.
Public Participation in the Budget Process in the Republic of Korea

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-06) Kang, Young Kyu ; Min, Saw Young

In January 2013, the International Budget Partnership (IBP) released the latest Open Budget Survey (OBS) with a new section on public participation. The survey results are not encouraging. For the 100 surveyed countries, the average score for public participation in the budget process is 19 out of 100. However, one country stands out. With a score of 92, Korea emerges as the only country ‘that provides extensive opportunities for public engagement’ (IBP 2012, 33). What makes Korea an exception? This note investigates the different public participation mechanisms in Korea and illustrates how public inputs are reflected in the country’s budget process and fiscal policies.
Building Monitoring and Evaluation Capacity in the Republic of Yemen

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-03) Ivins, Ingrid ; Hwang, Helena

This note disseminates key lessons learned from the World Bank financed project in the Republic of Yemen, monitoring and evaluation of the poverty reduction strategy paper and reform programs, which established and operationalized a poverty reduction strategy monitoring unit. The approaches used, such as a study tour to Uganda, focused international training sessions, and the successful work on improving and minimizing the number of indicators, provide some lessons learned for other countries seeking to build monitoring and evaluation (M&E) capacity. Policy makers learned from Uganda s good practices of connecting accountability with resource allocation and of the importance of a strong and independent statistics office. The Republic of Yemen s experience also illustrates the value of having a powerful M&E champion to support such a significant initiative. Finally, the inclusion of civil society organizations in the planning process and in M&E outputs, especially on the central level and on policy matters, increased popular support and was an important factor in building M&E capacity.
The Changing Politics of Tax Policy Reform in Developing Countries

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-02) Moore, Mick

Who shapes tax policy reform in developing countries? A wider range of political actors are beginning to exercise influence. A brief history in this report will explain who they are and how they operate.
Strengthening PFM in Post-Conflict Countries: Lessons for PFM Practitioners and Country Programming Staff

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-12) Fritz, Verena

Myriad challenges, but also opportunities, surround public financial management (PFM) reforms in postconflict environments. This note provides recommendations that focus on the special characteristics of postconflict environments and their implications for the design and implementation of PFM reform initiatives, and on links to the wider goals of state-building and service delivery. This note principally draws on a cross-country review of the design, implementation, and impact of public financial management (PFM) reforms in eight postconflict states. Focusing on the PFM reform experience over a 7–10-year period from the early 2000s to 2010, the goal of the study was to understand what has worked in countries’ efforts to strengthen PFM systems, and how PFM strengthening impacts wider state-building goals.
The Fiscal Management of Natural Resource Revenues in a Developing Country Setting (or How to Design a Fiscal Rule If You Are Not Norway)

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-04) Eckardt, Sebastian ; Sarsenov, Ilyas ; Thomas, Mark Roland

The exhaustibility and volatility of natural resource revenues pose well-known economic challenges, of which those facing oil producers are the most prominent. If oil revenues represent an important share of export earnings and of government revenues, then they can be part of overheating during booms and costly adjustments during downturns, making fiscal policy exacerbate volatility. At the same time, considerations of intergenerational equity suggest that fiscal policy should also preserve part of current oil revenues for future generations. To address both of these challenges, resource-rich countries commonly establish commodity funds, into which part of their resource-linked revenues are deposited and invested in income-generating assets (usually offshore financial assets). A key question in designing such funds is what share of current revenues should be spent and what share saved. Based on recent advisory services offered to the Ministry of Economy and Trade in Kazakhstan, this note summarizes one possible approach, aiming to provide rule-based anchors for sustainable fiscal policy in an oil-producing country. This approach applies traditional permanent-income and debt sustainability frameworks, but adapts the resulting recommendations to the institutional context of the country. Rule-based fiscal frameworks offer strong benefits to countries that are generating significant government revenue from extractive industries. As commitment devices, these frameworks can reinforce fiscally responsible economic management, contain volatility, and preserve fiscal savings for future generations.
Conducting Diagnoses of M&E Systems and Capacities

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-11) Shepherd, Geoffrey

A diagnosis of a country's monitoring and evaluation (M&E) activities is indispensable if that country is to develop projects or policy proposals to improve the impact of M&E. This note provides a guide to some of the topics that need to be considered when undertaking such a diagnosis. These topics emphasize both the institutional analysis of factors that drive demand for M&E and the technical factors that drive supply. For each of the nine topics identified, this note discusses some of the major issues analysts would need to consider. This discussion principally centers on reviewing how these issues were covered in recent M&E studies for a number of developed and developing countries.
New Open Economy Industrial Policy : Making Choices without Picking Winners

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-09) Kuznetsov, Yevgeny ; Sabel, Charles

This note starts from the premise that policy makers invariably make mistakes, both intentional and unintentional. That requires shifting the focus from one-time choice of winners (sectors, industries, firms, and other organizations) to the process of error detection and error correction of the choices (with corresponding attention to governance). This note shifts the debate on government activism in support of globally competitive industries from a choice of picking/dropping winners to a process of step-by-step transformation of private and public sectors. In such a process, new industrial policy creates its own context for efficient design and implementation in two ways. First, by shifting the focus of analysis and institutional design from private sector to a new public sector capable of providing customized and flexible public goods and enabling private agents to compete globally. The key concept here is heterogeneity (discretionary differences) of institutions: it is almost always possible to find some that are working. The issue is using the ones that work to improve those that don't. This hypothesis assumes that there are nearly always opportunities for development in a given economy, and that some actors, private and public, begin to take advantage of them.
Chile's Monitoring and Evaluation System, 1994-2010

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-08) Dussauge Laguna, Mauricio I.

The Chilean Management Control and Evaluation System (Sistema de Evaluacion y Control de Gestion) is internationally regarded as a successful example of how to put into place a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system. Chilean M&E tools are the product of both cross-national lesson-drawing, and national policy learning experiences. The main M&E tools are centrally coordinated by the Ministry of Finance's Budget Office (Direccion de Presupuestos, or DIPRES) and promote the use of M&E information in government decision-making processes, particularly those related to the budget. These M&E tools have been, however, subject to a number of criticisms. As a result, the experience described in this note does not necessarily offer a model that can, or should, be easily transferred to other countries with different institutional contexts. Furthermore, this note does not reflect the latest changes, nor does it try to offer guidance for the future. However, the Chilean experience summarized here, covering the period of 1994-2010, provides interesting examples and highly relevant lessons about the benefits and limitations of M&E design and implementation.
The Canadian Monitoring and Evaluation System

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-06) Lahey, Robert

Performance measurement, monitoring, and evaluation have long been part of the infrastructure within the federal government in Canada. With more than 30 years of formalized evaluation experience in most large federal departments and agencies, many lessons can be gained, not the least of which is the recognition that the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system itself is not static. The Canadian government has a formalized evaluation policy, standards, and guidelines; and these have been modified on three occasions over the past three decades. Changes have usually come about because of a public sector reform initiative such as the introduction of a results orientation to government management, a political issue that may have generated a demand for greater accountability and transparency in government, or a change in emphasis on where and how M&E information should be used in government. This chapter provides an overview of the Canadian M&E model, examining its defining elements and identifying key lessons learned.