Publication:
Legislative Oversight and Budgeting : A World Perspective

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Files in English
English PDF (2.61 MB)
5,001 downloads
English Text (1.06 MB)
2,952 downloads
Date
2008
ISSN
Published
2008
Editor(s)
Abstract
Effective legislatures are fundamental to promoting good governance and are a critical component in a country's overall governance framework. Although differences exist across government systems, legislatures, through their constitutional mandates, fulfill three core functions: representation, lawmaking, and oversight. Governance goals of greater accountability, transparency, and participation are directly related to these three functions. Legislative oversight in particular seeks to ensure that the executive and its agencies, or those to whom authority is delegated, remain responsive and accountable. This volume looks at oversight as a continuous and ongoing cycle. Legislatures may examine government policies as they are being developed or work to ensure that programs are implemented and administered efficiently, effectively, and in a manner consistent with legislative intent. In addition, this book highlights the important opportunities provided for oversight during the budget cycle. At the same time, the authors recognize the many factors and incentives legislators face that may assist or impede them in playing their oversight role.
Link to Data Set
Citation
Stapenhurst, Rick; Pelizzo, Riccardo; Olson, David M.; von Trapp, Lisa. 2008. Legislative Oversight and Budgeting : A World Perspective. WBI Development Studies;. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/6547 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.
Associated URLs
Associated content
Report Series
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Publication
    The Role of Parliaments in Curbing Corruption
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2006) Stapenhurst, Rick; Johnston, Niall; Pelizzo, Riccardo
    In most countries, Parliament has the constitutional mandate to both oversee government and to hold government to account; often, audit institutions, ombuds and anti-corruption agencies report to parliament, as a means of ensuring both their independence from government and reinforcing parliament's position at the apex of accountability institutions. At the same time, parliaments can also play a key role in promoting accountability, through constituency outreach, public hearings, and parliamentary commissions.
  • Publication
    Scrutinizing Public Expenditures : Assessing the Performance of Public Accounts Committees
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-05) Stapenhurst, Rick; Sahgal, Vinod; Woodley, William; Pelizzo, Riccardo
    In 2002, David McGee wrote a comprehensive report on two important elements in the system of public financial accountability, namely the office of the Auditor General and the parliamentary oversight committee commonly referred to as the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). The purpose of the present paper is to deepen McGee's analysis of PACs. In particular, the authors define PAC success and identify those factors that affect PAC peformance. They use data that were collected by the World Bank Institute in 2002, when a survey questionnaire was sent to 51 national and state/provincial parliaments in Commonwealth countries in Asia and Australasia, and Canada and the United Kingdom. The authors find that the institutional factors which most account for the success of the PACs are the focus on government's financial activity rather than its policies, the power to investigate all past and present government expenses, the power to follow up on government action in response to its recommendations, and its relationship with the Auditors General.
  • Publication
    Strengthening Oversight by Legislatures
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2002-10) Stapenhurst, Rick; Manning, Nick
    About 90 percent of the world's nearly 200 sovereign states have national legislatures or parliaments. With the spread of democracy and the rise of multiparty political systems, these bodies are playing larger roles in government. Increasingly, legislatures and their members perform four important functions of governance: o Making policies and laws. Legislatures are representative bodies for collective decisionmaking, working with the executive branch to deliberate policies and make laws. Representing citizens. Legislators give voice to individual citizens, civil society organizations, and business groups, representing the needs of local constituents in policymaking. Overseeing the executive. Legislatures oversee policy implementation by the executive branch, scrutinizing its work and holding it accountable. Recruiting future leaders. Legislatures are stepping stones and training grounds for senior positions in the executive branch. Transcending these formal functions, legislatures also provide an arena where competing political forces can debate and reach consensus on national policies and laws. This note addresses the oversight function because of its significance for government transparency and accountability, and because the Bank has initiated pilot projects to support this function.
  • Publication
    Tools for Legislative Oversight: An Empirical Investigation
    (World Bank, Washington, D.C., 2004-09) Pelizzo, Riuccardo; Stapenhurst, Frederick C.
    Parliaments are the institutions through which governments are held accountable to the electorate. They have a wide range of tools with which to carry out this oversight function, but until recently little analysis had been undertaken on the characteristics or use of such tools. This paper uses data for 83 countries that was collected in 2001 to investigate whether the oversight potential relates to three variables, namely the form of government (presidential, semi-presidential, or parliamentary), per capita income levels, and the level of democracy. The paper finds that oversight potential is greatly affected by the form of government, per capita income levels, and levels of democracy. Countries with parliamentary forms of government, higher income levels, and which are more democratic have a greater number of oversight tools and greater oversight potential. While the oversight potential follows this general trend, the use of committees of enquiry, interpellations and ombudsman offices follows a different pattern. The use of interpellations as an oversight tool is most common in high income countries, less common in low income countries and least common in middle income countries while the presence of committees of enquiry and of the ombudsman offices is most common in middle income countries, less common in high income countries and least common in low income countries.
  • Publication
    Parliaments as Peacebuilders in Conflict-Affected Countries
    (2008) O'Brien, Mitchell; Stapenhurst, Rick; Johnston, Niall
    The role of parliament in conflict-affected countries becomes even more evident when the correlation between poverty and conflict is considered. This book is pioneering in that it considers what parliaments in conflict-affected countries can do, while performing their normal everyday functions, to not only contribute directly to conflict prevention but also aid peace building by combating poverty. By addressing issues of poverty, equitable distribution of resources, and economic development, parliamentarians can attempt to guard against the creation of an enabling environment that is prone to the escalation of conflict. In line with their respective missions, the World Bank Institute and the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association have examined issues facing parliamentary development in the hope of strengthening parliaments' capacity to tackle the diverse challenges they face. Among those challenges is meeting growing community expectations of the contribution parliaments make to resolving important issues and addressing community demands. In recognition of the rising number of parliaments that are operating in conflict-affected societies, the World Bank Institute has sought to better understand the challenges faced by parliaments in conflict-affected countries and the role parliaments can play in conflict management and poverty alleviation.

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

  • Publication
    Corporate Governance of State-Owned Enterprises : A Toolkit
    (Washington, DC, 2014-10-04) World Bank Group
    This Toolkit provides an overall framework with practical tools and information to help policymakers design and implement corporate governance reforms for state-owned enterprises. It covers the key elements of corporate governance, including legal and regulatory framework, state ownership arrangements, performance management systems, financial and fiscal discipline, boards of directors, transparency and disclosure, and protection of shareholders in mixed ownership companies. Experience shows that no one approach is universally applicable and the choice of measures depends on country and enterprise circumstances. The Toolkit thus provides a range of frameworks, concepts, case examples, checklists, and model documents that together aim to help government officials make the appropriate choices for their circumstances. The Toolkit concludes with guidance on managing the reform process, in particular how to prioritize and sequence reforms, build capacity, and engage with stakeholders.
  • Publication
    Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2022
    (Washington, DC : World Bank, 2022) World Bank
    Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2022: Correcting Course provides the first comprehensive analysis of the pandemic’s toll on poverty in developing countries. It identifies how governments can optimize fiscal policy to help correct course. Fiscal policies offset the impact of COVID-19 on poverty in many high-income countries, but those policies offset barely one quarter of the pandemic’s impact in low-income countries and lower-middle-income countries. Improving support to households as crises continue will require reorienting protective spending away from generally regressive and inefficient subsidies and toward a direct transfer support system—a first key priority. Reorienting fiscal spending toward supporting growth is a second key priority identified by the report. Some of the highest-value public spending often pays out decades later. Amid crises, it is difficult to protect such investments, but it is essential to do so. Finally, it is not enough just to spend wisely - when additional revenue does need to be mobilized, it must be done in a way that minimizes reductions in poor people’s incomes. The report highlights how exploring underused forms of progressive taxation and increasing the efficiency of tax collection can help in this regard. Poverty and Shared Prosperity is a biennial series that reports on global trends in poverty and shared prosperity. Each report also explores a central challenge to poverty reduction and boosting shared prosperity, assessing what works well and what does not in different settings. By bringing together the latest evidence, this corporate flagship report provides a foundation for informed advocacy around ending extreme poverty and improving the lives of the poorest in every country in the world. For more information, please visit worldbank.org/poverty-and-shared-prosperity.
  • Publication
    World Development Report 2004
    (World Bank, 2003) World Bank
    Too often, services fail poor people in access, in quality, and in affordability. But the fact that there are striking examples where basic services such as water, sanitation, health, education, and electricity do work for poor people means that governments and citizens can do a better job of providing them. Learning from success and understanding the sources of failure, this year’s World Development Report, argues that services can be improved by putting poor people at the center of service provision. How? By enabling the poor to monitor and discipline service providers, by amplifying their voice in policymaking, and by strengthening the incentives for providers to serve the poor. Freedom from illness and freedom from illiteracy are two of the most important ways poor people can escape from poverty. To achieve these goals, economic growth and financial resources are of course necessary, but they are not enough. The World Development Report provides a practical framework for making the services that contribute to human development work for poor people. With this framework, citizens, governments, and donors can take action and accelerate progress toward the common objective of poverty reduction, as specified in the Millennium Development Goals.
  • Publication
    Empowerment in Practice : From Analysis to Implementation
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2006) Alsop, Ruth; Bertelsen, Mette; Holland, Jeremy
    This book represents an effort to present an easily accessible framework to readers, especially those for whom empowerment remains a puzzling development concern, conceptually and in application. The book is divided into two parts. Part 1 explains how the empowerment framework can be used for understanding, measuring, monitoring, and operationalizing empowerment policy and practice. Part 2 presents summaries of each of the five country studies, using them to discuss how the empowerment framework can be applied in very different country and sector contexts and what lessons can be learned from these test cases. While this book can offer only a limited empirical basis for the positive association between empowerment and development outcomes, it does add to the body of work supporting the existence of such a relationship. Perhaps more importantly, it also provides a framework for future research to test the association and to prioritize practical interventions seeking to empower individuals and groups.
  • Publication
    Digital Progress and Trends Report 2023
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-03-05) World Bank
    Digitalization is the transformational opportunity of our time. The digital sector has become a powerhouse of innovation, economic growth, and job creation. Value added in the IT services sector grew at 8 percent annually during 2000–22, nearly twice as fast as the global economy. Employment growth in IT services reached 7 percent annually, six times higher than total employment growth. The diffusion and adoption of digital technologies are just as critical as their invention. Digital uptake has accelerated since the COVID-19 pandemic, with 1.5 billion new internet users added from 2018 to 2022. The share of firms investing in digital solutions around the world has more than doubled from 2020 to 2022. Low-income countries, vulnerable populations, and small firms, however, have been falling behind, while transformative digital innovations such as artificial intelligence (AI) have been accelerating in higher-income countries. Although more than 90 percent of the population in high-income countries was online in 2022, only one in four people in low-income countries used the internet, and the speed of their connection was typically only a small fraction of that in wealthier countries. As businesses in technologically advanced countries integrate generative AI into their products and services, less than half of the businesses in many low- and middle-income countries have an internet connection. The growing digital divide is exacerbating the poverty and productivity gaps between richer and poorer economies. The Digital Progress and Trends Report series will track global digitalization progress and highlight policy trends, debates, and implications for low- and middle-income countries. The series adds to the global efforts to study the progress and trends of digitalization in two main ways: · By compiling, curating, and analyzing data from diverse sources to present a comprehensive picture of digitalization in low- and middle-income countries, including in-depth analyses on understudied topics. · By developing insights on policy opportunities, challenges, and debates and reflecting the perspectives of various stakeholders and the World Bank’s operational experiences. This report, the first in the series, aims to inform evidence-based policy making and motivate action among internal and external audiences and stakeholders. The report will bring global attention to high-performing countries that have valuable experience to share as well as to areas where efforts will need to be redoubled.