Simon Gill

1
CIPFA Partner WorkshopWhat Works In
International Development

• Simon Gill
• Public Financial Management Accountability Team
• Policy Division, DFID
• 16 June 2004

1 Palace Street, London SW1E 5HE Abercrombie
House, Eaglesham Road, East Kilbride, Glasgow G75
8EA
2
DFID/CIPFA Lunchtime Seminars Applying UK
Experiences to Development Challenges

• Tackling serious reputation and performance
  David Marlow, Doncaster
• Creating the space for decision making in local
  communities Sarah Wood, Birmingham
• Supporting leaders in effective change Clive
  Grace, Audit Commission in Wales
• Devolution John Elvidge, Scottish Executive

3
Structure

• Background to DFID and PFMA work
• Some examples of current work
• Questions QA session at the end

4
DFID

• New government department formed in 1997
• Increased resources to tackle world poverty,
  together with international community (2004-05
  Programme Budget 3.7billion)
• 8 Millennium Development Goals

5
The Challenge

• Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
• Achieve universal primary education
• Promote gender equality empower women
• Reduce child mortality
• Improve maternal health
• Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria other diseases
• Ensure environmental sustainability
• Develop a global partnership for development

6
Relevance of Public Financial Management

• Underpinning good governance for
• Effective use of resources
• Effective service delivery

7
How is it achieved?

• Working with partner governments on institutional
  change
• Working at local or sector level
• Focusing on poverty reduction strategies and
  pro-poor budgets
• Targeting marginalised groups

8
Unusual techniques

• Gender budgeting
• Participatory budgeting
• Public expenditure tracking surveys

9
Gender budgeting

• Analysis of the budget to assess its impact on
  women and men ( sometimes children)
• Useful for helping to ensure policies are fair
  and achieve expected poverty reduction
• Equal access to health, education and other
  resources
• Improve productivity of all groups

10
Example Gender Budgeting, South Africa

• Womens budget initiative groups have been set up
  at the national, provincial and local levels
• At the national level they analyse public
  expenditure patterns in terms of their impact on
  the economic and social condition of women
• They track spending on gender sensitive policy
  measures as well as general spending patterns

11
Example Gender Budgeting South Africa

• Routinely allocates resources in national budget
  to target gender related issues
• Raising awareness on gender
• Creating the space for more responsive budgets
• Promoting accountability and transparency
• But, not yet known if this has led to poverty
  reduction

12
Participatory budgeting

• Engagement of the community (or sections of the
  community) in the budget process
• Useful for giving disadvantaged groups a voice
  in the use of resources. Also to
• Improve transparency
• Reduce corruption

13
Example Participatory Budgeting

• Brazil
• Introduced in Porto Alegre in 1989
• High level of citizen engagement in planning
• Extended to around 100 cities
• Tangible results increase in access to water
  services and tax revenue increased by 50

14
Participatory Budgeting implications

• Organisational capacity
• Govt in Brazil able to manage a large-scale
  participatory programme
• Political support
• Brazilian project enjoyed strong and committed
  political leadership with an agenda driven by a
  strong pro-poor perspective
• Realistic expectations
• How do we manage this pressure? Also recurrent
  implications from capital programmes.

15
Public expenditure tracking surveys (PETS)

• Tracing surveys, providing information to
  communities on resource allocation e.g. to
  schools, health clinics.
• How much of the originally allocated resources
  reach each level and how long do they take to get
  there?
• Useful for reducing leakage of public funds and
• Improving transparency
• Improving levels and quality of services

16
Example PETS

• Uganda
• First World Bank survey 1996 13 capitation
  budgets reaching schools
• Actions by Uganda Government.
• Grant transfers published at the school, on
  radio, newspapers
• School based procurement
• Follow up surveys 2000-01 80 to 90 capitation
  reaching schools
• Results not repeated in health sector

17
PETS factors effecting input

• Expensive
• Requires in-depth sector knowledge
• Sufficient resources and time
• Additional factors
• Decision makers engaged with findings
• Local accountability structures
• Targetted dissemination
• Linked with existing monitoring techniques

18
Lessons for the UK

• Sometimes poor conventional structures and
  systems lead to new approaches
• Developing countries often leading the way in
  targeting marginalised groups
• UK practitioners can help with analytical tools

19
Positive Impact?

• Better targeting and tracking of resources for
  eg
• Elderly
• Children
• People with disabilities
• Marginalised groups
• Helping the creation of single focus agencies
  across health, education, employment etc.
• Integration of national and local resources?

20
What might be needed?

• Organised civil society
• Outcomes driven public services
• Engagement in decision-making
• Contracts of accountability between providers
  and citizens
• Institutionalising monitoring techniques

21
Challenges

• How can we best harness the skills and capacity
  of CIPFA members?
• Can we contribute an international dimension to
  the debate about public services in the UK?
• How can we combine our joint expertise in
  improving the public services both here and
  internationally?