Title: Simon Gill
1CIPFA 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
2DFID/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
3Structure
- Background to DFID and PFMA work
- Some examples of current work
- Questions QA session at the end
4DFID
- 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
5The 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
6Relevance of Public Financial Management
- Underpinning good governance for
- Effective use of resources
- Effective service delivery
7How 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
8Unusual techniques
- Gender budgeting
- Participatory budgeting
- Public expenditure tracking surveys
9Gender 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
10Example 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
11Example 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
12Participatory 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
13Example 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 -
14Participatory 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.
15Public 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
16Example 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
-
17PETS 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
18Lessons 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
19Positive 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?
20What might be needed?
- Organised civil society
- Outcomes driven public services
- Engagement in decision-making
- Contracts of accountability between providers
and citizens - Institutionalising monitoring techniques
21Challenges
- 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?