Publication: Strengthening Public Financial Management in Postconflict Countries
Loading...
Published
2011-04
ISSN
Date
2012-08-13
Editor(s)
Abstract
Understanding how to rebuild resilient states in post-conflict countries is an urgent priority for the international community. A new cross-country study of public financial management reforms in post-conflict situations shows that substantial progress is possible even in difficult circumstances, while showing a pattern of sequencing and progress that differs from standard assumptions. However, the impact on state building remains less than what might be hoped. That impact could be strengthened by persistently targeting sustainable capacity, challenging areas such as procurement, greater public awareness, and more rapid coverage of line ministries and sub-national levels.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Fritz, Verena; Hedger, Edward; Fialho Lopes, Ana Paula. 2011. Strengthening Public Financial Management in Postconflict Countries. Economic Premise; No. 54. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/10097 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 Afghanistan Public Expenditure Review 2010 : Second Generation of Public Expenditure Reforms(World Bank, 2010-04-01)Afghanistan and its donor community face a dilemma that is critical to the country's sustained development: how to channel more foreign assistance through the government's budgetary system (i.e., core budget) in the face of a huge capacity gap to ensure effective administration of such expenditures. Without more money on budget, national objectives such as poverty reduction and the building of a stable state cannot be fully realized. Currently, 90 percent of the national budget' is externally financed. Overall aid in 2008-09 amounted to US$5.5 billion or 47 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The critical issue, however, is not so much the amount of aid, but weaknesses in its mode of delivery and impact. Three quarters of the aid bypasses the government's own budget system, moving through what is known as the 'external budget'. This dual budgetary system means that most economic activity in Afghanistan takes place outside the government's fiscal control, thus undermining the government's legitimacy and relevance to the Afghan people and weakening the budget's primacy as the tool of national policy. The aid needs to be on-budget and aligned with Afghan priorities. If the success of aid can be gauged by the extent to which it enables a recipient country to free itself of the need for that aid, then the Afghanistan foreign assistance program, as currently structured, is failing its mission. Afghanistan's fiscal sustainability, after having risen to a plateau in recent years, regressed in 2008-09 due to rising operating expenditures, mainly for security, and the country remains one of the world's most aid-dependent.Publication Strengthening Public Financial Management : Exploring Drivers and Effects(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2014-11)This paper explores two relationships, first between country characteristics and the quality of public financial management ('drivers'), and second between the quality of public financial management systems and expected outcomes ('effects'). On the influence of country characteristics, the paper investigates economic factors (income level, growth, and resource dependency), population size, levels and sources of revenue, and three macro-political characteristics -- political stability, regime type, and the presence of programmatic parties. These characteristics jointly explain about 40 percent of the variation in the quality of public financial management across countries. Furthermore, first-difference analysis suggests that countries with lower initial public financial management quality improve at a higher rate over time. This implies that structural factors set the scene for the likelihood of better or worse performance, but also that there is substantial variation among countries sharing certain characteristics and reform opportunities exist even in unfavorable environments. Methodologically, a key limitation is that the direction of causality cannot be fully addressed with the types of data available. On the effects of the performance of public financial management, the paper finds evidence that stronger performance results in better budget credibility, but not in lower deficits. Furthermore, there is no clear evidence regarding operational efficiency. The observed disconnect could be caused by missing complementary state capacities, measurement problems, or other issues, which need to be explored further. Overall, the findings are consistent with the assumption that stakeholder incentives and constellations matter and that reform approaches combining good technical calibration and political economy considerations are likely to influence success in strengthening public financial management.Publication Rwanda : Technical Assessment on a Proposed Credit(Washington, DC, 2014-09-14)The Public Financial Management (PFM) Sector Strategic Plan (SSP) identifies key challenges and proposes solutions in each program that are translated into a foundation for defining sector priorities and outcomes through FY2017-18. Improving coherence between national strategies, the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF), and the annual budget process has been identified as an area for improvement under the first program, on economic planning and budgeting. In the second program, on resource mobilization, key challenges are inadequate resource mobilization, resulting in aid dependency at the national level and lack of discretionary revenues at the subnational level. Across the PFM sector, particularly under program 7, on PFM sector and coordination, capacity and skill shortages are identified as key bottlenecks. Capacity and skill shortages are more pronounced at the subnational level, especially on core PFM areas such as accounting, auditing, budgeting, and reporting. NISR made significant progress in the quality, timeliness, and dissemination of data, mainly in the social and demographic domain, under the first National Strategy for Development of Statistics, or NSDS (2009-14). The overarching objectives of NSDS 2 are to produce relevant, reliable, and timely statistics to monitor the progress of EDPRS 2 and to strengthen the NSS.Publication Colombia - Programmatic Strategic Engagement on Public Sector Management and Governance : Concept Note(Washington, DC, 2011-03-14)This concept note presents the strategic engagement of the World Bank in the areas of public sector management and governance in Colombia. It describes the short and medium term approach through which the Bank will provide support to the country on those areas of reform, as well as their links and synergies with other sectors activities. It also provides a summary of the Bank's public sector management and governance recent activities and their links with the program proposed by this strategy. This concept note lays out the strategy and program of financial support, knowledge and convening services to continue supporting the Government's public sector reform agenda in a demand-driven and flexible manner. The program aims to contribute to improve sustained and inclusive growth and competitiveness through strengthened government's management and improved service delivery. Its objectives are aligned with the National Development Plan (NDP) pillars and cross-cutting themes of good governance and regional development and integration, as well the Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) outcomes. The remainder of this note is structured as follows: (i) section two summarizes the trend public sector reforms have been following in Colombia; (ii) section three provides an overview of the trajectory the reform key National Government Management Institutions (NGMI) has followed in Colombia, summarizing the current status of Government's efforts in this area and outlining the pending policy reform agenda; (iii) section four presents a review of past Bank engagement in NGMI' s reforms and a description of the strategy to respond to the Government's priorities and pending reform agenda, including key expected outputs; (iv) section five provides an overview of the trajectory decentralization reform has followed in Colombia, summarizing the current status of Government's efforts in this area and outlining the pending policy reform agenda; (v) section six presents a review of past Bank engagement in decentralization reforms and a description of the strategy to respond to the Government's priorities and pending reform agenda, including key expected outputs; and, (vi) section seven contains a resource section, describing the timeline of proposed activities, budget, team composition, and processes for quality review, monitoring and evaluation.Publication Lao PDR Economic Monitor, November 2006(Vientiane, 2006-11)Lao PDR economic performance has continued to improve during 2006. Real GDP grew at 7.0 percent in 2005 and is now expected to be slightly higher at 7.3 percent in 2006. This growth is in large part due to foreign investment inflows in mining and hydro-power and growing mineral exports, but the share of non-mining contributions has increased this year, reaching 4.9 out of 7.3 percent. Agriculture, manufacturing and services sectors are expected to sustain growth, due to rising FDI in agriculture, manufacturing, and increasing trend in services (especially tourism). Inflation (of Consumer Price Index) has continued to remain in single digits: after rising early this year it has dropped remarkably during the last few months, to 5.5 percent in September and 3.7 percent in October 2006. This paper includes the following headings: introduction; part 1 recent economic developments -- the macroeconomic situation, elaboration and implementation of the Poverty Reduction Strategy; part 2 structural reforms -- public expenditure policy and management, reform of state-owned enterprises, financial sector reform, trade reform, and private sector development; and part 3 donor assistance to the reform agenda -- public sector governance; reform of state owned enterprises & financial sector; trade reform; and private sector, tourism development, and land reform.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Yemen Economic Monitor, Spring 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-08-01)The Yemen Economic Monitor provides an update on key economic developments and policies over the past six months. It also presents findings from recent World Bank work on Yemen. The Monitor places these developments, policies, and findings in a longer-term and global context and assesses their implications for Yemen’s outlook. Its coverage ranges from the macro economy to financial markets to human welfare and development indicators. It is intended for a wide audience, including policy makers, development partners, business leaders, financial market participants, and the community of analysts and professionals engaged in Yemen.Publication FY 2025 China Country Opinion Survey Report(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-08-04)The Country Opinion Survey in China assists the World Bank Group (WBG) in better understanding how stakeholders in China perceive the WBG. It provides the WBG with systematic feedback from national and local governments, multilateral/bilateral agencies, media, academia, the private sector, and civil society in China on 1) their views regarding the general environment in China; 2) their overall attitudes toward the WBG in China; 3) overall impressions of the WBG’s effectiveness and results, knowledge work and activities, and communication and information sharing in China; and 4) their perceptions of the WBG’s future role in China.Publication Economic Growth and Development in Malaysia(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008)Malaysia is a multiethnic, upper-middle-income country that has relied heavily on income from its natural resources to engineer successful diversification into manufacturing and sharply increased incomes for all ethnic groups. This paper examines the role of the policy-making process and national leadership in effecting this structural change and growth with equity. It discusses the government's role in transforming corporate ownership patterns while nurturing industrial enterprises into niche products within complex value-added chains. At the same time, the paper underscores the difficulties and costs of attempting to move into areas where an economy has no strong advantages, in this case heavy industries. Privatization is seen to have been a powerful tool for expanding private enterprise despite limited entrepreneurial skills, but it is questionable as a sustainable strategy; the aggressive formation of new firms seems to offer better long-term prospects. An appropriate regime of policy making and implementation is required, characterized by political determination, stability, high attention to growth with equity, experimentation, and an ability to learn through implementation, both at home and from the experience of others. These are key factors accounting for the relative success of Malaysia. Nothing in the Malaysian experience suggests that it is possible or desirable to undertake reforms serially; in fact, the evidence suggests that the "reform cluster" approach to policy implementation is more effective because it addresses several coordination problems at the same time.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 Middle East and North Africa Economic Monitor, October 2015(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2015-10-21)The short-term prospects for a growth recovery in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are slim in the context of low oil prices and conflict escalation. Regional GDP growth, estimated at around 2.8 percent in 2015, will remain weak if current circumstances persist. In fact, since the Arab Spring, the region has seen a growth slowdown and a rise in the incidence of civil wars. This report explores how the region got to this state. It examines whether inequality or other factors contributed to the Arab Spring uprisings as well as to the ensuing conflicts. The report concludes that expenditure inequality, which was relatively low and declining, could not been a major factor in triggering the Arab Spring events, although wealth disparities, which are typically higher, could have been. Instead, we find that ordinary people, especially the middle class, were frustrated by the decline in their standards of living, related to the shortage of quality jobs, the poor quality of public services and lack of government accountability. The report also explores whether inequality played a role in the increase in the incidence of violence after the Arab Spring and finds suggestive evidence that intergroup inequality, rather than monetary inequality, contributed to the escalation of conflict.