Publication: Nepal : Public Expenditure Review, Volume 3. Social Sectors
Loading...
Published
2000-03-31
ISSN
Date
2013-08-16
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
The report is an overview of Nepal's economic development, comprising five volumes, which include the main report, followed by reviews on agricultural and rural development, on the social sectors, and, the transport sector. Although development progress is noteworthy in many areas, considerable evidence of improper resource spending exist, thus, the main objective of this report is to identify the incentives, and institutional factors that contributed to this spending, and propose recommendations. Systemic factors have consistently hindered implementation, and development results, such as deficient budget planning, resource allocation, and expenditure management, coupled with the lack of ownership of projects, and programs which contributed to poor performance. Institutional weakness, and governance issues remain the most critical aspects affecting effectiveness of public spending across sectors in Nepal. The report suggests that traditional budget reforms alone, will not be effective to improve public resource management, rather, changes in the political environment, and institutional capacity are required, prior to the much needed reforms. Given the fiscal constraints, the government should promote private participation to undertake economic activities, and, further enhance and promote, public involvement in social sectors development, and greater local ownership of public expenditure programs.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank. 2000. Nepal : Public Expenditure Review, Volume 3. Social Sectors. Public expenditure review (PER);. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/15151 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Guyana : Public Expenditure Review(Washington, DC, 2002-08-20)Since independence in 1966, Guyana's economy has gone through a state control of major productive sectors, and financial institutions - including controls of prices, credit, and foreign exchange - to a combination of political/social unrest, with terms of trade deterioration, and slow economic growth. This led Guyana to become the fourth poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, despite its rich endowment in mineral resources, biodiversity, and forested land. In this context, the main objective of the Public Expenditure Review (PER) is to analyze its expenditures so as to gain understanding of the structure of Government's budget processes to allow its execution, and, assist the Government in reorienting policies, institutions, and expenditures, to achieve private sector-led growth, and better services to the poor. The PER identifies a number of weaknesses in the budget process, namely, the need for intermediate steps to set the budget within a forward-looking medium term expenditure framework, the need to prepare current and capital expenditure budgets jointly, planning for future recurrent costs, and, the need to present the budget to Parliament on a timely basis with adequate information. Recommendations suggest the budget be prepared within a national development program, and a multi-year rolling expenditure framework, with integrated budget processes for current, and capital expenditures, and, strengthening the capacity of the Ministry of Finance for economic modeling, and forecasting. The report assesses sectoral policies, and expenditures in four broad areas: health, education, poverty programs, and infrastructure, focusing on how policies, incentives, and budgetary allocations can change to improve economic efficiency, and poverty alleviation.Publication Investing in Universal Health Coverage(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-01)The report contains eight chapters. Chapter one leads off with the main macroeconomic and fiscal determinants to understand the general health financing situation in DRC. Its sections one and two provide a brief overview of the country’s macroeconomic and fiscal environment. Section three sheds new light on decentralization, a core health issue, and focuses on the fiscal implications of decentralization. Section 4 offers a brief analysis of the management of public finance, a key element for the effectiveness and quality of expenditure, especially in health. Chapter two starts with a brief overview of the main objectives and analyzes its organization and governance, with a focus on health care delivery. Chapter three discusses the performance of the main health system’s outputs and outcomes. Section one analyzes major changes in health outcomes based on different household surveys. Section two addresses service coverage with a focus on mother and child services. Section three explores service quality issues. In a detailed analysis of health financing sources, Chapter four looks at changes in public, external, and private sources over 2008–2013 (section one). Section two analyzes the adequacy of government funding for health financing needs, and assesses the prospects for expanding fiscal space for health. Chapter five examines government funds mobilized for health, both allocated in the budget and executed (or actuals). Government resources for health are taken to mean all domestic financing sources allocated to the Ministry of Public Health and other health entities. Section one examines changes in the health budget envelope over 2007–2013, while section two focuses on actual spending. Section three analyzes government executed expenditure by nature and section four reviews trends and types of personnel expenditure, the largest share of government health expenditure. Chapter six focuses on health expenditure performance in the light of three main parameters: financial protection; equity; and efficiency. Section one analyzes financial protection using standard indicators (share of out-of-pocket payments, catastrophic expenditure, and impoverishing expenditure). Section two scrutinizes health outcomes and service use disparities and inequalities based on income, gender, and place of residence. The last section presents an overview of the efficiency of health expenditure in DRC, primarily in comparison to its peer countries. Chapter seven analyzes health financing from the point of view of the provinces, the new ‘entitled’ authorities for the health sector, drawing on a survey of financial and fiscal data from six provinces. Section one presents an overview of health financing flows after decentralization. Section two focuses on financing sources for the health sector at the provincial level, examining provincial government funds, external assistance, and central government transfers. The chapter ends with an analysis of the volume and type of decentralized government health expenditure. The report concludes in a brief chapter eight with a series of recommendations to improve short- and medium-term health sector financing and performance.Publication Challenges in Financing Education, Health, and Social Protection Expenditures in Zimbabwe(Washington, DC, 2011-02-02)The Government of Zimbabwe (GOZ) faces difficult choices in managing the size of its civil service wage bill. The Government understands the need to watch the escalating wage bill carefully and put in place a strategy to steer it to a sustainable level as early as possible. Historical and international comparisons suggest that an overall wage bill of around 10 percent of GDP should be the medium-term target. This note illustrates that Zimbabwe could take immediate steps in 2010 and 2011 that will put it on the path of a sustainable level of wage bill in the medium-term. The focus of efforts to contain the wage bill should be on short-term measures because designing and implementing a medium-term approach to wage bill management would be too challenging in view of prevailing economic uncertainty and complex political reality. The note covers the staff employed by the Central Government, including uniformed services and staff employed by the Grant-in-Aided (GIA) institutions. The staff employed by local governments and public enterprises are excluded because direct transfers from the central budget to local government and public enterprises are rather small. (annex A has an outline of the institutional aspects of civil service in Zimbabwe). Given the paucity of information, the note does not make any recommendations specific to the GIA wage bill.Publication Madagascar : Public Expenditure Review 2004 - The challenge of Poverty Reduction(Washington, DC, 2005-02)This Public Expenditure Review (PER) analyzes the Government of Madagascar's efforts to meet the challenge of poverty reduction. The report first evaluates the macroeconomic and fiscal framework within which the Government is implementing its Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS). Secondly, reviews the resource allocation and current budget management process in Madagascar, and the extent to which the current budgeting, and budget management process allows the Government to effectively implement the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP). This section also deals with overall budget execution in implementing the Government policies, and the use of human resources. The final sections analyze the effective use of public resources in three priority sectors which are crucial for the implementation of the PRSP - education, transport and environment - and absorb the largest sectoral allocations. The findings of this report expand, and further deepen existing knowledge about the public finance system in Madagascar, and its contribution to the delivery of services in specific sectors. While they acknowledge Government efforts to improve the system of public finance, they confirm significant weaknesses in allocating and executing public resources at the sectoral, and cross-sectoral levels. The findings and recommendations of the report call for the development of an integrated reform program, which prioritizes intended reforms in view of the absorptive capacity of the Government machinery. At the cross-sectoral level, it is anticipated to feed the recommendations into the development of the Priority Action Plan of the Ministry of Economy, Finance and Budget (MEFB) for the year 2005. At the sectoral levels the recommendations of this report will contribute to a refinement of government's interventions, aimed at improving implementation of sectoral policies, and delivery of services.Publication Nigeria—Improving Primary Health Care Delivery : Evidence from Four States(Washington, DC, 2008-06)The delivery of quality primary health care (PHC) services can have a large impact on the health of Nigerians. This study aims mainly at understanding the performance of primary health care providers and the variables driving this performance. The study is primarily based on quantitative surveys at the level of primary health care facilities, health care personnel, and households in their vicinity. These surveys were implemented in four states: Bauchi, Cross River, Kaduna, and Lagos. The purpose of this study is three fold: (i) to contribute to the evidence base of the Federal Government's health system reform efforts; (ii) to inform the Bank's and Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) sector policy dialogue with the Government; and (iii) to inform the current and eventual health support programs of both donors at state level. This study represents the second phase of the Nigeria Health, Nutrition, and Population Country Status Report (CSR). The first phase aimed at analyzing the health situation of the poor and how the health system was performing in terms of meeting their needs. This first phase identified primary health care as the weakest chain in the entire health sector and the level of care the poor use the most. This second phase of the CSR is therefore focused on the analysis of the delivery of PHC services. In contrast to the first phase, this study is mainly based on primary data, data collected through facility, health personnel, and household surveys. This study is focused in the collection of information not previously available, such as detailed roles and responsibilities of the Local Government Area (LGA) and states and community perceptions of PHC services. This study is also to support on-going or eventual health support programs of CIDA and the World Bank at the state level.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication Lebanon Economic Monitor, Fall 2022(Washington, DC, 2022-11)The economy continues to contract, albeit at a somewhat slower pace. Public finances improved in 2021, but only because spending collapsed faster than revenue generation. Testament to the continued atrophy of Lebanon’s economy, the Lebanese Pound continues to depreciate sharply. The sharp deterioration in the currency continues to drive surging inflation, in triple digits since July 2020, impacting the poor and vulnerable the most. An unprecedented institutional vacuum will likely further delay any agreement on crisis resolution and much needed reforms; this includes prior actions as part of the April 2022 International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff-level agreement (SLA). Divergent views among key stakeholders on how to distribute the financial losses remains the main bottleneck for reaching an agreement on a comprehensive reform agenda. Lebanon needs to urgently adopt a domestic, equitable, and comprehensive solution that is predicated on: (i) addressing upfront the balance sheet impairments, (ii) restoring liquidity, and (iii) adhering to sound global practices of bail-in solutions based on a hierarchy of creditors (starting with banks’ shareholders) that protects small depositors.Publication Argentina Country Climate and Development Report(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)The Argentina Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) explores opportunities and identifies trade-offs for aligning Argentina’s growth and poverty reduction policies with its commitments on, and its ability to withstand, climate change. It assesses how the country can: reduce its vulnerability to climate shocks through targeted public and private investments and adequation of social protection. The report also shows how Argentina can seize the benefits of a global decarbonization path to sustain a more robust economic growth through further development of Argentina’s potential for renewable energy, energy efficiency actions, the lithium value chain, as well as climate-smart agriculture (and land use) options. Given Argentina’s context, this CCDR focuses on win-win policies and investments, which have large co-benefits or can contribute to raising the country’s growth while helping to adapt the economy, also considering how human capital actions can accompany a just transition.Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.Publication World Development Report 2006(Washington, DC, 2005)This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.