Person:
Dener, Cem
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Public Expenditure Management,
Financial Management Information Systems,
e-Government,
Governance
Degrees
External Links
Departments
Global Practice on Governance
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
February 1, 2023
Biography
Cem Dener is currently the Chair of Financial Management Information Systems Community of Practice (FMIS CoP) in the Governance Global Practice (GGP) of the World Bank. Dr. Dener made significant, original contributions to Public Financial Management (PFM) and e-Government reform programs in more than 40 countries over the past two decades by providing strategic advisory and hands on support for building effective and transparent digital solutions. He led the establishment of the FMIS CoP in 2010 to exchange knowledge and experiences and disseminate good practices, and develop leading edge knowledge products based on new datasets. He has extensive system design and application development experience gained in private and public sector projects, as well as in academic studies, prior to the World Bank. Dr. Dener was the Global Lead for Integrated Digital Solutions, serving as the focal point on digital governance within GGP (2015-2017). He represents the World Bank in regional and international events and forums to share experiences and trends in transition to integrated FMIS platforms, and open source solutions in public sector with key government officials and practitioners. He is actively contributing to the regional/global knowledge sharing and learning platforms, and organization of dissemination events. He is the lead author of two World Bank Studies: “FMIS: 25 Years of World Bank Experience on What Works and What Doesn’t” (April 2011) and “FMIS and Open Budget Data: Do Governments Report on Where the Money Goes?” (Sep 2013). He received BSME from METU, Ankara, Turkey (1982), MSc from Cranfield Institute of Technology, Bedford, U.K. (1985), and PhD from Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium (1992).
Publication Search Results
1 - 3 of 3
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Publication
Financial Management Information Systems and Open Budget Data : Do Governments Report on Where the Money Goes?
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2013-09)In recent years, the topics of budget transparency and open data have been increasingly discussed. Most discussants agree that for true transparency, it is important not only that governments publish budget data on websites, but that the data they disclose are meaningful and provide a full picture of their financial activities to the public. Most governments have made substantial investments in capacity building and technology for the development of Financial Management Information Systems (FMIS). This study is the first attempt to explore the effects of FMIS on publishing open budget data, identify potential improvements in budget transparency, and provide some guidance on the effective use of FMIS platforms to publish open budget data. Overall, there are only 48 countries (24 percent) where civil society and citizens have the opportunity to benefit from Public Finance (PF) information published on the web to monitor the budget and hold their governments accountable. In many countries, external audit organizations do not appear to be using the FMIS platforms effectively for monitoring the government's financial activities or auditing the budget results. Governments in high-and middle-income economies publish budget data dynamically in various formats, mainly from centralized systems, while many lower-income economies tend to publish static budget data, mostly through documents posted on PF websites. The study shows that only a small group of countries provide good access to reliable open budget data from underlying FMIS solutions. Many governments publish substantial information on their PF websites, but the contents are (not always) meaningful to provide adequate answers to the question, 'Where does the money go?' Therefore, the main conclusion of this study is that when it comes to government PF websites, what you see is (not always) what you get. Many governments need to make additional efforts that will build confidence in the budget data they disclose. As citizens and civil society increasingly demand access to open data about all financial activities, governments around the world are trying to respond to this democratic pressure. The outputs of this study are expected to provide a comprehensive view of the status of government practices for publishing budget data around the world, and to promote debates around the improvement of PF web publishing platforms to support transparency, accountability, and participation by disclosing reliable information about all financial activities. -
Publication
GovTech Maturity Index: The State of Public Sector Digital Transformation
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2021-09-15)Governments have been using technology to modernize the public sector for decades. The World Bank Group (WBG) has been a partner in this process, providing both financing and technical assistance to facilitate countries’ digital transformation journeys since the 1980s. The WBG launched the GovTech Initiative in 2019 to support the latest generation of these reforms. Over the past five years, developing countries have increasingly requested WBG support to design even more advanced digital transformation programs. These programs will help to increase government efficiency and improve the access to and the quality of service delivery, provide more government-to-citizen and government-to-business communications, enhance transparency and reduce corruption, improve governance and oversight, and modernize core government operations. The GovTech Initiative appropriately responds to this growing demand. The GovTech Maturity Index (GTMI) measures the key aspects of four GovTech focus areas—supporting core government systems, enhancing service delivery, mainstreaming citizen engagement, and fostering GovTech enablers—and assists advisers and practitioners in the design of new digital transformation projects. Constructed for 198 economies using consistent data sources, the GTMI is the most comprehensive measure of digital transformation in the public sector. Several similar indices and indicators are available in the public domain to measure aspects of digital government—including the United Nations e-Government Development Index, the WBG’s Digital Adoption Index, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Digital Government Index. These indices, however, do not fully capture the aspects of emphasis in the GovTech approach—the whole-of-government approach and citizen centricity—as key when assessing the use of digital solutions for public sector modernization. The GTMI is not intended to be an assessment of readiness or performance; rather, it is intended to complement the existing tools and diagnostics by providing a baseline and a benchmark for GovTech maturity and by offering insights to those areas that have room for improvement. The GTMI is designed to be used by practitioners, policy makers, and task teams involved in the design of digital transformation strategies and individual projects, as well as by those who seek to understand their own practices and learn from those of others. -
Publication
Financial Management Information Systems : 25 Years of World Bank Experience on What Works and What Doesn't
(World Bank, 2011-04-26)This paper was prepared by the public sector and governance group of the World Bank poverty reduction and economic management network. Since 1984, the World Bank has financed 87 Financial Management Information System (FMIS) projects in 51 countries, totaling over US $2.2 billion, of which US $938 million was for FMIS-related Information and Communication Technology (ICT) solutions. This study presents the World Bank's experience with these investment operations, including substantial ICT components, in order to share the achievements and challenges observed, and provide guidance for improving the performance of future projects. This study is dived into five chapters. The introduction covers the definitions used and methodology applied in reviewing projects. Chapter 2 provides descriptive characteristics of the sample data drawn from Bank databases and describes general patterns in duration, regional distribution, costs, and ICT solutions implemented, among other aspects. Chapter 3 analyzes the performance of the projects, differentiating between ratings of the Implementation Completion Reports (ICRs) and the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) reports, as well as the factors contributing to the success and failure of projects and individual components. A detailed analysis of country case studies from Mongolia, Turkey, Albania, Guatemala, and Pakistan are presented in chapter 4. In conclusion, chapter 5 synthesizes the main lessons learned and prerequisites necessary for an effective FMIS project. The findings of this study are based on a comprehensive database of 55 closed and 32 active Treasury and FMIS projects implemented between 1984 and 2010 (pipeline projects were also analyzed in some sections). The data presented here was gathered from individual project ICRs, Project Appraisal Documents (PADs), the IEG reports, and complemented with interviews with task team leaders and relevant public sector and informatics specialists.