The Public Expenditure Management Handbook [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION In recent years there has been a significant rethinking of approaches to improving budgetary outcomes. Increasing attention to institutional and management issues is complementing the more traditional analytic and technical approach to resource allocation and financial management. This change in emphasis is illustrated in the recently revised guidance on Public Expenditure Reviews for the Africa Region. The approach in this handbook centers on improving institutional arrangements and management practices to create incentives for better resource allocation and financial management. While it illustrates particular forms that these institutional arrangements might take, it is not advocating any particular mechanism. What it is advocating is that each country will need to have a set of institutional arrangements that lead to improved budgetary outcomes. This new approach is very much a work in progress, and the purpose of this handbook is to further that progress. Several premises underlie the approach taken in this handbook: a. A greater focus on performance-the results achieved w'rth expenditure-has the potential to engage all stakeholders in pursuit of budgetary and financial management reform. b. Improved iinkages between planning, policy and budgeting are essential to sustainable improvements on all dimensions of budgetary outcomes. c. Well-functioning accounting and financial management systems underpin governmental capacity to allocate and use resources efficiently and effectively. d. Reform of budgeting and financial management systems and processes cannot be carried out independently of the other service-wide systems and processes of government-for decision making, for organizing govemment, for personnel management. The approach has been influenced by the practice of well-performing govemments and by extensive research that builds on the theory of institutions. Theory and practice show that a country's institutions-both formai and informál-have a decisive influence on budgetary outcomes at three levels: a. aggregate fiscal discipiine; b. the allocation of resources in accordance with strategic priorities; c. the efficient and effective use of resources in the implementation of strategic priorities. The interdependence of the three levels is one of the most powerful findings of both practice and theory.