PREM Notes

176 items available

Permanent URI for this collection

https://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 176

Using National Education Management Information Systems to Make Local Service Improvements : The Case of Pakistan
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-05) Nayyar-Stone, Ritu
Education management information systems (EMISs), usually located within the ministry of education, are tools that can help governments improve education system administration by providing information that can be used in strategic planning, resource allocation, and monitoring and evaluation. Frequently, however, they are underutilized and become merely a reporting mechanism. Using the data at the point of collection usually individual schools in a decentralized environment and feeding them into service improvement action plans can circumvent problems with the national EMIS, and allow the data to become instrumental in improving local education service delivery outcomes.
Implementing Right to Information
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-09) Dokeniya, Anupama
Over the last two decades, several developing countries have adopted right to information (RTI) laws, bringing the number of countries with such laws to more than 90. But empirical evidence on how effectively RTIs have worked, whether they have been effectively enforced, and if they have had any impact on improving accountability, is limited. This note examines how RTI laws have worked in different country contexts, drawing from an analysis of their implementation in eight countries spanning different regions, income levels, political forms, and administrative traditions. The experiences of these countries show that implementation has faced challenges across countries, but has been especially difficult in countries where the broader governance environment is weaker on dimensions such as the rule of law, government effectiveness, voice and accountability, civil liberties, and political rights. During the implementation phase, with the erosion of the initial political momentum behind the law, the incentives for officials to comply with the new legislation also tended to erode, resulting in efforts to undermine the law. The evidence suggests that as countries with challenging governance environments and capacity limitations adopt RTI laws, they will need to both devise implementation solutions that can adapt to these limitations and undertake complementary initiatives to strengthen their broader governance environment.
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.
Using M&E to Support Performance Based Planning and Budgeting in Indonesia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-11) Ahern, Mark; Beard, Victoria A.; Gueorguieva, Anna I.; Sri Handini, Retno
Since 2000, there has been growing interest in reforming Indonesia s budgeting systems to promote a more performance-orientated process. Indonesia is in the initial stages of this reform. A major challenge is determining the information needs of the central coordinating ministries. To date, these ministries have taken separate paths, developing their own monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems, which are not linked to the planning and budgeting system, and creating new regulations and institutions to manage them. The result has been underused information and a high reporting burden at all levels. Furthermore, the current system places a greater emphasis on monitoring rather than evaluation. In 2011, representatives from the coordinating ministries participated in a series of high-level round table discussions to identify the steps needed to rationalize and coordinate M&E practices across institutions and to strengthen the links among data collection, evaluation, planning and budgeting. The round table process has confirmed that, while coordination is needed, establishing incentives for the demand and use of M&E information is critical to making the systems effective. This note identifies priority areas for future action building on this finding.
Establishing a National M&E System in South Africa
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-09) Goldman, Ian; Engela, Ronette; Akhalwaya, Ismail; Gasa, Nolwazi; Leon, Bernadette; Mohamed, Hassen; Phillips, Sean
South Africa has a number of actors with legal or constitutional mandates for monitoring and evaluation (M&E). There has been a major shift in emphasis concerning M&E since 2009, partially stimulated by a political need to improve service delivery, but also from the extensive exposure of both technocrats and political leadership to international experiences. As a result, the Ministry of Performance M&E was created in the Presidency in 2009, and the Department of Performance M&E (DPME) in January 2010. The DPME has introduced a number of initiatives since its establishment, including a focus on 12 government priority outcomes; the assessment of the quality of management performance of national and provincial departments; a new system of monitoring front-line services; a national evaluation system; and a municipal performance assessment tool, which is still in development. These tools have contributed to a major increase in the availability of evidence for policy and decision making. Rapid recent progress is due to strong support at the onset from South Africa s President, learning from international experience, and strong teams in DPME and the National Treasury. Despite these positive developments, significant challenges remain in ensuring the coherence of reform initiatives conducted by central government departments, improving administrative data quality, and establishing M&E as a core role of management.
Performance, Monitoring, and Evaluation in China
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-09) Wong, Christine
Amidst all the hoopla about China's rise, it is useful to remember that China is a developing country whose transition to a market economy is not yet complete, with institution building still underway. The uneven pace of progress is reflected in the state of its public sector, but in some respects, China s public sector looks formidable. Most often mentioned is the government s treasure chest of US$3 trillion in foreign reserves. Even more enviable, government revenues have grown at annual rates of over 20 percent for a decade (China statistics 2011), fuelling a steep fiscal expansion at a time when so many countries are being forced to undergo painful consolidations. The government s reputation was further burnished in the post-Lehman global financial crisis, when, after a brief, though sharp, downturn in 2008, China became the first major economy to return to robust growth, propelled by a stimulus program that was, in relative terms, by far the biggest in the world. The bold stimulus and quick economic recovery seemed to show off an effective public sector able to implement national policies swiftly.