Most people agree that comprehensive, clear and transparent budget reporting is important for accountability between a government and its citizens, and there has been a drive for transparency in many countries over the last decade. This Opinion offers lessons learned and next steps emerging from the process of creating a new Budget Performance Report (BPR) in Tajikistan. The Opinion argues that this is an opportunity to examine what constitutes an open and transparent report, and its evolution and sustainability.
A summary of initial findings from an ongoing review of progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which will include a set of league tables. The key message is that progress is possible, with a number of countries making real achievements.
Design and implementation of a ‘Virtual Poverty Fund’ and advice to the Ministry of Finance on improved budget report
Review for the World Bank of international knowledge on PFM reforms in fragile states, and analysis of reform experience in three countries.
Under Structural Adjustment, developing countries had been required to subject their economies to competition from international trade in exchange for loans to their governments. After the Washington Consensus was deemed to have failed, Poverty Reduction Strategies were introduced as a way of managing debt relief, addressing social objectives, and giving countries stronger 'ownership' over their recovery policies. But in what ways, regarding trade, do PRSPs and the succeeding loans improve on the preceding arrangements? This book reviews the trade and poverty content of PRSPs and the policy conditions of the lending arrangements which followed for seventeen countries. It concludes that whereas loans almost invariably still establish conditions for trade liberalisation, PRSPs, with few exceptions, neglect trade policy (tending to focus on expenditure rather than production and economic growth). There is thus asymmetry between these innovatory poverty-focused policies and IFI loan financing. The report recommends to redress this imbalance by improving the trade content of the poverty analysis in PRSPs, and for donors and lenders to address supply-side policies relating to trade infrastructure.
