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.

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 41

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.
Use of Social Accountability Tools and Information Technologies in Monitoring and Evaluation

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-02) Sharma, Rajiv

This note attempts to cover the basic concepts relating to the use of social accountability and information technology to monitor and evaluate public services and other governance processes that affect citizens. With the help of simple though practical examples that use these concepts, the note explains how to bring a qualitative change in monitoring and evaluation by making the whole process more citizen centered and outcome oriented. In turn, these practices can help improve the quality of service delivery. The note also covers a few country-specific initiatives from India to support the related arguments.
M&E Systems and the Budget

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-10) Krause, Philipp

Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) are means to multiple ends. Measuring government activities, constructing and tracking performance indicators across sectors and over time, evaluating programs, these activities can be carried out and tied together with different objectives in mind. It will certainly be possible to use M&E purely as a way to improve transparency and accountability, by making more information on the workings and results of government programs available to the public. One can also focus M&E on managerial purposes, to reward performance inside ministries and agencies. But surely a crucial element of running an effective public sector will be missing if M&E were not used to inform the spending of public money. This briefing note will introduce the main issues surrounding M&E as a tool for budgeting, a system usually referred to as performance budgeting, to help policy makers make strategic decisions about their M&E systems by outlining different design choices and their respective advantages and pitfalls.
Implementing Public Expenditure Tracking Surveys for Results : Lessons from a Decade of Global Experience

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-11) Gurkan, Asli ; Kaiser, Kai ; Voorbraak, Doris

Public Expenditure Tracking Surveys (PETS) can serve as a powerful tool to inform prevailing public financial management (PFM) practices and the extent to which government budgets link to execution and desired service delivery objectives and beneficiaries. Since the first PETS in Uganda in 1996, tracking exercises have now been conducted in over two dozen other countries, often as part of core analytical and advisory work related to PFM. This note synthesizes the findings and lessons from a number of recent PETS stocktaking exercises and indicates their potential benefits for enriching PFM and sectoral policy dialogues in a variety of country settings. Key findings include: (i) PETS have proven to be useful as part of a broader policy strategy aimed at improving service delivery results; (ii) PETS has become a brand name for very different instruments, but at its core there is a survey methodology that requires skilled technical expertise and a solid knowledge of budget execution processes; (iii) policy impact in a variety of PETS experiences could be further strengthened by stronger country ownership and effective follow-up; and (iv) the Bank could enhance PETS results through strategic partnering, and greater emphasis on dissemination and communication strategies aimed at involving actors who can foster actions on the ground.
Fiscal Policy for Growth

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-04) Ley, Eduardo

While the term 'fiscal space' is new, the issue is quite old. Fiscal space refers to availability of budgetary resources for a specific purpose, typically growth-enhancing investment uses, without jeopardizing the sustainability of the government's financial position, or the stability of the economy. The recent interest in fiscal space originated as a reaction to International Monetary Fund (IMF), supported fiscal-adjustment programs that by focusing too narrowly on fiscal-deficit targets often ignored the quality of the underlying adjustment. Affected countries meanwhile advocated for fiscal space for investments in physical and human infrastructure crucial for economic growth. The IMF independent evaluation office, in their study on fiscal Adjustment in IMF supported programs acknowledged this problem, observing that 'much of the fiscal adjustment achieved is through measures that do not assure long-term sustainability and flexibility of fiscal systems to future shocks'. In effect, the improvement of the fiscal balance in the context of IMF-supported programs too often relied heavily in cuts in public investment that improve today's government cash flow at the expense of future economic growth.
Linking Fiscal Policy and Growth in PER Reports : An Operational Framework for Low-Income Countries

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-03) Moreira, Emmanuel Pinto

This note describes a framework for linking fiscal policy and growth issues in low-income countries. The framework has been developed in the context of a recently, completed Public Expenditure Management and Financial Accountability Review (PEMFAR) report in the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region. The note describes first the framework and then illustrates its application to fiscal reform and growth prospects in the context of Haiti. The note concludes by laying out an agenda for developing this framework further, ideally to facilitate use of this framework in preparing more Public Expenditure Reviews (PERs) and elaborating medium-term budget frameworks.
On the Marriage Between Public Spending and Growth : What Else Do We Know?

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-03) Moreno-Dodson, Blanca

While there are strong theoretical arguments for ways in which public spending influences growth, robust empirical links have been difficult to establish. More recently, many of the methodological problems that plagued the earlier literature have been overcome and interesting policy lessons drawn. The number of studies of developing countries using these new approaches is still limited, due to data scarcity and other comparability issues, but overall findings from the new literature are relevant for developing country policy makers and also open new venues for future research. The objective of this note is to present these new empirical results together with the methodological improvements that support them, and to outline some of the issues that need deeper analysis and empirical study, particularly in developing countries.
A Stocktaking of PRSPs in Fragile States

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-11) Dudwick, Nora ; Nelsson, Adam

In 1999, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) introduced poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSPs) as a condition for highly indebted countries to receive debt relief under the HIPC initiative. Since then, PRSPs have become a condition for aid to International Development Association (IDA) countries, for which they are considered instrumental in refocusing attention on poverty, democratizing policy making, and improving donor coordination. While PRSPs may play that role in many IDA countries, their usefulness in fragile states, including those just emerging from conflict, has been questioned. Increased donor attention to the specific problems of such states was the impetus for a Poverty Reduction Group (PRMPR) stocktaking of PRSPs in fragile environments.
Pro-Poor Public Spending Reform : Uganda's Virtual Poverty Fund

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-03) Williamson, Tim ; Canagarajah, Sudharshan

The Poverty Action Fund (PAF) was introduced in Uganda in 1998 to reorient government expenditures towards implementing its Poverty Education Action Plan (PEAP) as well as to account for Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) resource use. This paper notes the successes of the PAR, the negative aspects, and the key lessons learned. Successes include: reorienting budget allocations towards pro-poor service delivery and demonstrating the additionality of debt relief; mobilizing donor resources and harmonizing conditions; and improved budget predictability, transparency, and accountability. The negative aspects include: unbalanced budget allocations, biased budget implementation, partial monitoring and evaluation, and no exit strategy. The key lessons were: To be effective, a Virtual Poverty Fund (VPF) should be simple and limited to the identification of Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) priority expenditures in the budget classification system; a VPF should be introduced in a way that supports rather than replaces the implementation of such comprehensive improvements in budget preparation and implementation; and a VPF does not bypass the need to have a PRSP and an effective budget process that identify priority pro-poor expenditures to be included in the VPF as part of a broader policy framework for growth and poverty reduction.
Modeling Pay and Employment

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-02) Nunberg, Barbara ; Green, Amanda ; Reid, Gary

Bank support for civil service reform (CSR) in developing countries used to focus mainly on improving government pay, and employment practices. In recent years, CSR programs have sought a broader set of management improvements. But getting public pay and employment right is still fundamental: establishing appropriate civil service employment dimensions, and providing rewarding-but affordable-remuneration for public servants remains a formidable challenge for many countries. Pay policies need to be fiscally responsible, but also attractive enough to draw the best talent into the public sector. In addition, such policies must be politically feasible; governments need to support difficult reforms that can survive implementation without being undermined or derailed. The Civil Service Pay and Employment Model (CSPEM) was created to help governments develop realistic civil service pay and employment strategies, and to enhance policy discussions within government, and between government and donors on these important reforms. This note describes early lessons of experience with civil service pay and employment modeling tools.