Incremental annual budgeting, no forward medium-term framework

Typically, Anglophone African budgets are traditional in form and in process. They tend to be incremental in approach, designed to ensure compliance—typically in some detail—with an annual budget appropriation law. The incremental and annual approach often makes it difficult to identify the long-term policies the budget is supposed to support and to design meaningful programs. At the same time, the lack of forward perspective implies there is no basis for making judgments about the future cost implications of present spending decisions and, in particular, the recurrent cost implications of investment spending.

Budget based on unrealistic projections

Budget preparation is often characterized by poor revenue forecasting, resulting in overambitious expenditure levels. A major feature of Fund programs is to correct for this tendency. Of course, revenue forecasting is not easy in commodity-based economies with a high degree of dependence on trade taxes and sharp fluctuations in the terms of trade. The need for conservatism in the African context is reinforced by the typically narrow tax base and weak tax administration. Unfortunately, the lack of realism of budgets has been reinforced by under-costing of expenditure programs, where typically some line items are consistently under-provisioned. Indeed in the Anglophone system, which typically still operates on the basis of “bottom-up” bids of the spending ministries, it is not clear how these bids are reconciled with top-down macro limits, except during budget implementation, usually by under-provisioning.

The result of such unrealistic projections has been profound, with important and needed government programs proving to be unsustainable. However, instead of reforming policies and downsizing government operations, governments have tended to overspend, or to maintain projected cash levels but create arrears, or simply to underfund some items. Typically, underfunding has occurred on interest on debt, utilities, and transfers to state-owned enterprises, along with squeezing operation and maintenance spending to cover the cost of wages. The net result has been an inefficient composition of expenditure, and a persistent accumulation of arrears that creates moral hazard and removes the incentive for realistic costing.

Dual budgets: recurrent vs. development

The recent budget reform initiatives, including the MTEF, are designed to move countries away from separate recurrent and development budgets. The latter is one aspect of traditional budgeting wisdom that advanced the “golden rule”—recurrent spending should be covered by revenues, and borrowing should be used only for investment purposes. This underlying premise has been questioned, with the increasing emphasis on the importance of human rather than physical capital in the development process. Additionally, despite the move of donors from project-related to program-related assistance, the split between development and recurrent budgets persists. Indeed, this bifurcation has generally been aggravated by being institutionalized in the functional split of the MOF in charge of the recurrent budget, and the planning ministry or the President’s office in charge of the development budget. Coordination of expenditures between recurrent and development budgets has been made even more difficult by the tendency of donors to dominate the composition and size of investment budgets, and to bypass regular government procedures—the latter ostensibly to speed up disbursement and avoid corrupt practices. Despite such efforts, slow disbursement and lack of administrative capacity have often resulted in underexecution of the development budget. Foreign financing usually requires domestic counterpart expenditures, which has often proved a problem, and the lack of information makes monitoring difficult.

Detailed line item budgeting, emphasizing inputs without much regard to functions or programs

Budgets have been designed for compliance purposes rather than for policy analysis and planning. The traditional budget thus tended to be very detailed, stressing the institutions responsible for spending and the detailed objects of expenditure. The lack of more relevant functional or program classifications means that the policy objectives underlying spending have often been lost in the details. Similarly, it is difficult to distinguish between existing and new policies—complicated by the tendency to introduce new policies during the year.

Without adequate control from top-down limits, these additional commitments have tended to undermine fiscal discipline. Often revenue-raising measures are needed but no new revenues are raised, resulting in supplementary appropriations, arrears, or an explicit widening of the fiscal deficit. The MTEF process has attempted to tackle this feature of traditional budgets by developing sectoral envelopes based on sector expenditure plans that try to intermediate between macro-fiscal targets and detailed line item expenditures.

Coverage often incomplete

Traditionally, budgets have been designed on a rather centralized view of government; hence the coverage of expenditures is generally limited to the central government plus transfers to local governments and a few major autonomous funds. However, extrabudgetary funds (EBFs) are often excluded, and the budget process still lacks transparency regarding transfers to lower levels of government, and their subsequent accountability for use of funds. This has proved an increasing problem for many countries, as they have pursued a deliberate policy of decentralization, making the operations of lower levels of government increasingly important. Coverage of all government operations is typically incomplete, with autonomous agencies still budgeting on a net basis and “below-the-line funds” often creating several financial management problems (e.g., in The Gambia and Zimbabwe) that are invisible in the budget. Moreover, poor budget execution control has created incentives to evade and hide operations in various ways: implicit subsidies via tax expenditures, uncollected on-lent loans, equity participation and capital injections, and unrecorded quasi-fiscal operations. The consequence is that the budget document is often incomplete in its coverage of government operations.

Unrealistic budget timetable

Arising from the perception that the estimates are unrealistic, the budget has lost its credibility, with some obvious consequences. One of the most obvious symptoms is that the budget timetable does not allow for meaningful policy decision making. Often spending ministries do not comply with the budget department’s call circular. Important political decisions affecting spending may be made late in the budget cycle. Budget preparation allows little time for parliamentary discussion. Budgets are often adopted late, after the new fiscal year has begun.

Expenditure control: a persistent problem

There are a number of points in the expenditure process at which the MOF can exert central control. The first control point is the issuing of warrants that provide spending agencies the authority to spend—a major instrument of control in countries such as Kenya and Nigeria. This has tended not to work well because it has been based on unrealistic budget estimates. The second control point is on commitments. However, information on commitments generally is not adequately maintained in spending ministries’ vote books, and not reported centrally to the MOF in a reliable or timely manner. The third control point is cash funding. Often, there is evidence of a resort to “cash budgeting” (e.g., in Kenya, Tanzania, and Zambia in the 1990s) based on cash availability. Usually, the cash releases are below warrant levels, and the latter are often below budget authorizations. Ultimately, these releases represent an attempt to do through budget execution what should have been done in budget preparation—adjust expenditure policies to meet changed resource availability. These attempts have been disruptive to service delivery and, because of poor cash planning, the system of control has reverted to cash rationing—resulting in arrears and nontransparent cash reallocations. In turn, this provides an incentive for ministries to increase their off-budget activities (e.g., not reporting receipts raised by ministries). Of course, the existence of arrears itself can lead to pressure for corruption, because of decisions about who in the queue should be paid first.

Modernization not facilitated by the budget management system

The decentralized nature of PEM systems in Anglophone African countries is often viewed as complicating modernization efforts through computerization or administrative and management reforms, compared with some more centralized systems. Even in those countries that have not decentralized government expenditure to lower levels of government, the expenditure process in Anglophone African countries is typically characterized by a relatively high degree of decentralized management. Spending ministries are mainly responsible for budget execution, with officials in line ministries authorized to initiate and manage each step of the expenditure process. Generally the minister of finance will issue quarterly or annual warrants to the accounting officers (AOs), who are the heads of the line ministries, commonly the Permanent Secretary. When compared with some more centralized PEM systems, this approach can complicate efforts to introduce management or administrative reforms, or to computerize expenditure control and management systems. This is due to both the technical difficulties of linking up many separate units, particularly where infrastructure is poor, and the need for additional coordination among sections of government in an environment where capacity is often extremely weak.

For example, the recent or existing payment systems in many of the countries reviewed in this study were set up for manual operation, and their relative simplicity should be regarded as a great strength. However, this is also a weakness from the wider view of spending control—one that takes more than the last stage of spending into account—and one that views control from a general management viewpoint rather than from the narrow one of financial compliance with the approved budget. The possibility of moving to this wider view of control depends largely on the degree of computerization that is possible. In this regard, it has often been claimed that the budget management found in Anglophone African countries does not support easy computerization.

This may be an oversimplification, since the experience in Anglophone Africa varies significantly. In some countries, payment is carried out by the spending units (e.g., in Malawi and Zambia), but in others it is centralized (e.g., The Gambia, Lesotho, and Tanzania). However, the recording and control of prior stages of the spending process are typically undertaken in the spending ministries (SMs). These prior stages, in terms of commitments made and pending obligations, cause many spending problems. The need to record more speedily and consolidate this information has led to the development of integrated computerized accounting and payment systems. Of course, there are generally other influential factors in addition to the design of the expenditure management system. Many countries are not able to introduce computerization because of lack of resources and administrative capacity or human resources. This constraint in developing more effective budget controls through computerized FMISs is discussed below.

Weak internal control and internal audit

The internal controls in the Anglophone African system are designed to be decentralized, so the AO in the spending ministry, usually the Permanent Secretary, is made responsible for proper utilization and control of his appropriation. In this, he is typically allowed much discretion. However, in some countries, one finds a centrally administered internal audit function with internal auditors assigned by the MOF to the SMs, ostensibly to assist the AO. Often this centrally controlled audit has been introduced to limit the discretion of AOs, and not surprisingly it is undermined by them. Universally, however, the level of control offered is limited to basic checking for financial compliance, with internal auditors often lacking proper training. In some countries with low salary levels, the internal audit’s checking exists only as one extra step for extracting economic rent. Not surprisingly, some countries have had to resort to higher-level investigative units to impose discipline—for example, anticorruption offices or commissions (e.g., Kenya and Uganda). Generally, the case for this extra layer of control is difficult to justify in terms of the results.

Accounting framework

Most of the Anglophone African countries in this review use a cash basis for accounting. While relatively easy to operate, such a system has distinct limitations for compliance purposes and especially for providing useful information for management purposes. For example, a cash-based system does not usually track expenditure commitments. Another limitation is that the general ledger (GL), the principal recording mechanism, typically has incomplete coverage of government operations. While set up to record transactions against appropriations, it covers only the strict budgetary operations. Since the system is decentralized, in that the accounts are kept by the spending ministry and reported to the MOF, this allows some discretion and much leeway for “creative accounting.” Typically, the Office of the Accountant General (OAG) in the MOF consolidates the accounts of the ministries and presents the final accounts to parliament as the Annual Accounts of the government. Unfortunately, this is often viewed as its primary function, and only as a distinctly secondary function, if at all, does the OAG generate reports as an input to in-year fiscal management. A feature of the Anglophone system is that the OAG, although reporting to the Finance Minister, is somewhat independent, and his office is often separated from the core functions of the MOF. Sometimes, this has led to a disconnect between those authorizing payments and the OAG, which must execute and fund the discharge of these authorizations.

Government banking arrangements

Generally, the traditional management of government cash resources has been fragmented. The concept of a consolidated fund, which is close to a TSA, has typically been undermined in a number of ways. As a fiduciary safeguard, donors such as the World Bank have often insisted on special project accounts so they can monitor the inflow and outflow of monies. Often, other special accounts have been maintained outside the regular government account. It has also been common practice in the decentralized Anglophone system for SMs to open accounts in commercial banks for both their receipts and expenditures. The profusion of government accounts means that it is not surprising that problems of idle cash balances, poor cash planning, higher costs of financing, and so on, are encountered. In some Anglophone African countries, government cash management is in any case constrained by a poorly developed banking system unable to operate zero-balance government accounts that would allow the government greater control over cash balances in commercial bank accounts.

External audit

In the Anglophone African system, the external audit function is generally entrusted to an independent Auditor General (AG), reporting to the legislature. A major problem is the delay in the OAG submitting annual accounts to the AG for audit and submission to parliament. The function is typically handicapped by a lack of skills and capacity and hence its inability to audit accounts in a timely way. Because of this, audited accounts are often submitted with a lag of many years and hence lose their relevance. Even when relevant, mechanisms for following up audit recommendations are typically inadequate. In addition, key legislative committees, such as the Public Accounts Committee, are weak. In such an environment, it is perhaps not surprising that the final accounts do not generate much public interest.

Lack of commitment and accountability

It has been argued that lack of budget discipline within the executive branch and a failure to comply with existing financial regulations have often been at the root of many of the PEM problems of Anglophone African countries. Although AOs are in principle personally financially responsible for ensuring the expenditure control of their votes, they are not usually sanctioned if they fail to abide by the legal framework or financial regulations.

Corruption has been endemic in typically low-paying and bloated civil services. Even today, governments often act as employers of first resort. Over the years, with the resultant rapid expansion in the civil service sector, real wages often fell drastically. Then the managers of PEM systems and their lower-level staff lost their motivation, and not surprisingly, the systems deteriorated. Low salaries also undoubtedly contributed to the growth of opportunistic corruption.

Weak central control by the MOF

Many of the problems arise from basic organizational weaknesses of the MOF, which has failed to evolve to meet the new economic challenges faced by most of the Anglophone African countries. Expenditure policy and financial controls are largely assigned to SMs, with the AOs having power to make commitments against their approved budget appropriations largely without reference to the MOF. If, for wider fiscal considerations, the MOF tries to exert some pressure on the rate of commitments being made, it is dependent on the timely and accurate reporting of the SMs, which is often deficient. Procurement remains a source of corruption. Accountability at the SM level is generally deficient, so even when accounts are produced and audited, and deficiencies are found, there is typically no follow-up by the MOF or by parliamentary committees. As indicated previously, the AOs are not disciplined by the MOF for overspending and financial irregularities.

Institutional fragmentation

Control suffers owing to the split between budget preparation and budget execution functions in the MOF. The OAG in charge of recording execution of the budget and its cash execution typically operates separately from the rest of the MOF, which is primarily concerned with the annual budget preparation exercise and only secondarily with budget implementation. The consequences of this have had a negative impact on budget management. First, there is a poor flow of financial information on government operations. The OAG produces accounts for compliance purposes but does not primarily supply management information, and is often more concerned with ex post annual accounts than in-year budget execution (see the discussion of the accounting framework above). Second, budget preparation and execution are disconnected: warrants are issued by the budget department without knowing the extent of previous utilization. Since annual accounts are slow to come, the annual budget is usually prepared on the basis of the previous year’s budget estimates rather than the provisional outturn, which typically is far different. Third, the financial management function is fragmented, with different departments concerned with debt and aid flows, and typically not integrated with OAG’s accounting or the rest of MOF operations. Similarly, those responsible for managing personnel expenditures often do not coordinate closely with personnel managers (either in SMs or in a dedicated central ministry), resulting in poor control over the wage bill.

Poor legal framework

In several cases, the legal framework and its accompanying financial instructions have changed little since independence, and are largely oriented toward creating a compliance and control framework based on traditional line item budgeting. Normally, this framework provides adequate procedures for budget preparation, expenditure control, and fiscal reporting and auditing. The more pressing need is perhaps not to rewrite existing legislation, but to ensure that there is adherence to its provisions.

On the other hand, with governance issues dominating PEM in African countries, there may be a case for introducing fiscal accountability-type legislation (e.g., as in South Africa). While fiscal responsibility laws have become a feature of some “progressive” middle-income countries, their use in less-developed countries is rare. In the latter countries FAD advice has generally focused on consolidating and improving budget management procedures in the main budget system law. The emphasis has been on introducing a modern Public Finance Act to replace the usually dated legislation inherited from colonial times.

In this context there may also be a case for clarifying the relative powers between the executive branch and the legislature. In principle, the Anglophone budget system centers on the supremacy of the legislature over the executive branch. However, this has been qualified in a number of ways. Most Anglophone African countries after independence saw the rise of strong presidencies, often in the context of a one-party political system, or part of a military regime. The executive branch thus acquired considerable powers. At the same time, treasury control has always been recognized as very important in budget execution, so the MOF is recognized as first among equals in terms of ministerial hierarchy. Sometimes, this is not so clear in a presidential system, with a powerful President’s office or a powerful planning ministry. While in the original Westminster model powerful legislative committees (especially expenditure review committees) backed by external audit countered the executive’s powers, in Anglophone African countries these are often toothless watchdogs. In any case, audit offices generally are weak institutions, with no real independence, and lack expertise and staff. Common problems in audit offices are the poor wage levels and lack of motivation and incentives.

The mix of technical assistance inputs

Even a cursory examination of Table 2 shows that the mix of TA, between missions and resident advisors, has varied markedly among countries. For the majority of the Anglophone African countries, the most significant TA input has taken the form of resident advisors rather than missions. The details are shown in Figure 1, which gives the distribution over the period FY1998–FY2003 of FAD’s TA by these two different modes of delivery. The mix has changed over the years. If one calculates the share in this country sample, the proportion of TA in 1998 delivered by means of missions was 30 percent, whereas in 2002, the last year for which complete data are presented, the proportion of missions in the total had fallen to 15 percent. However, the mix is highly variable, and typically the two forms of delivery are related. FAD’s approach throughout the period was to send a diagnostic mission to precede the assignment of an advisor, and thereafter much smaller missions and briefer follow-up or inspection missions were expected. From this perspective, the switch to resident advisors really reflects the sharp increase in TA delivered during this period, especially until 2001.

The areas covered in technical assistance

Table 1 indicates the main areas of TA provided to the sample countries, as captured by the major subject area codes. It should be noted that these are highly aggregated and, therefore, are unable to capture the full scope of the work of missions or resident advisors. However, even at this aggregate level, it is evident that FAD’s advice focused mainly on budget execution issues: expenditure controls, cash management, and fiscal reporting. It is not surprising that these are issues that also tended to be key aspects of Fund programs and in effect, underline the nature of FAD’s technical assistance for PEM as a support function for Fund program operations. At the same time, this approach has raised the question whether, in following this path, PEM TA was applied to short-term problem solving and interim solutions rather than to longer-term reform plans. These TA priorities will be reviewed more fully below.

The remainder of this section provides an overview of the main features of this TA program by country, by subject matter, and by management of the program.

Summary of country experiences

This review indicates that the overall impact of Fund TA in the PEM area has been quite mixed. Two countries showed clear signs of success while two were distinct failures. There have also been some disappointing reversals in the reform process. On the other hand, improvements have occurred in some places after prolonged periods of decline.¹⁴ In reviewing country case studies, it is apparent that the wider political and economic environment is a critical factor influencing PEM reforms. Quite simply, good advice is not always acted on. It is worth underscoring that in many ways, and perhaps not surprisingly, FAD’s experience mirrors the mixed success of Fund programs in these countries.

Budget execution issues: focus of Fund programs

Of the countries in this sample, some have had Fund-supported programs during the study period. Not unexpectedly, in countries that have been heavy users of Fund resources, FAD’s TA has been substantially influenced by budget execution issues, which are main concerns in the implementation of Fund programs.¹⁵ This has caused FAD’s TA to focus on issues that were essential for successful program implementation—primarily, expenditure control issues and improved fiscal reporting. Thus, in the sample countries, the main areas addressed by TA were expenditure control (seven countries), payment process (eight countries), and government banking arrangements (seven countries).

Improving expenditure control and fiscal reporting

FAD’s approach to expenditure control has focused on moving away from cash controls alone to the first stage of the spending process—controlling commitments to bring them in line with cash availability in order to prevent expenditure control problems such as arrears.¹⁶ In three of the sample countries, FAD’s resident expert had, as a central component of his TOR, the task of setting up a CCS.

Another aspect of FAD’s TA advice was to improve cash management concurrently with reforming banking arrangements focused on a TSA, to optimize the use of government cash. In some cases, it was recognized that this also involved debt management to be integrated with the cash planning. In six countries in this sample, FAD’s resident advisors had cash management issues among the stated tasks of their TOR.

The need for better quality and timelier fiscal reporting in Fund programs led to a major effort in trying to improve the accounting systems that provided the raw data for fiscal reports. Attempts to improve accounting were often associated with longer-term projects to introduce IFMISs.

Despite FAD’s TA, the persistent poor quality of the data has made fiscal reporting difficult. The HIPC initiative, which required many of these sample countries (Ethiopia, The Gambia, Ghana, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia) to report on their poverty-related expenditures, exposed the basic weaknesses. Indeed, of the eight HIPC countries in the review group, only half passed the average benchmark in fiscal reporting. In part, the problem was an inadequate classification system to identify and tag poverty-related expenditures, but in part there has been a failure of the system to report in an accurate and timely manner. In response, the authorities were encouraged to develop action plans to overcome PEM weaknesses, in coordination with TA from donors. FAD, in collaboration with the World Bank, carried out an assessment of 24 HIPC countries to identify major PEM weakness, helped the authorities develop action plans to address these weaknesses, and also provided TA to implement these action plans. Thus, HIPC-related reporting on poverty-related expenditures formed part of the work program for FAD’s resident advisors in all eight HIPC countries included in this sample.

Budget preparation issues: largely shared with the World Bank

The principal issues that FAD’s TA addressed in this area were, in order of priority, improved classifications; greater realism in budget projections; ending dual budgeting by consolidating recurrent and development budgets; extending budget coverage; supporting development of an MTEF; and reviewing budget procedures, most particularly, introducing more realistic budget calendars.

In four countries (Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Tanzania), FAD’s advisors addressed issues related to the budget consolidation and coordination of recurrent and development budgets. In three countries (The Gambia, Malawi, and Tanzania), budget classification was the main area of FAD’s TA. In Rwanda, FAD assisted in improving budgeting procedures and budget preparation timetables, and, finally, in Tanzania FAD helped in extending the budget’s coverage.

Issues not substantially addressed by FAD TA

There were a number of areas in PEM that were largely left to other providers, but where FAD felt obliged to enter if no other donor was available. One area was in strengthening existing financial regulations or drafting new budget management laws and regulations. Another area that preoccupied many Anglophone African countries during the period examined was the policy to decentralize and the implications of this policy for PEM. Missions to Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda examined this issue. FAD’s approach has been to treat this topic as benefiting from a multidisciplinary approach, arising from its revenue as well as expenditure dimensions. For this reason, it has not been a central element of PEM TA.

Also, increasingly, attention has been paid to supporting public commitments to transparency, and by so doing improving accountability and countering corruption. Much of this effort took place through missions that prepared a Report on the Observance of Standards and Codes (ROSC), which in the African context had a strong component of indirect TA. Out of the sample countries, only Malawi and Tanzania received ROSC missions, and their reports have been published. Occasionally, FAD provided one-off missions to assist functions such as internal audit (Kenya), but these were regarded as noncore TA areas by FAD. Other areas, such as strengthening the AG’s office, and any form of TA with a strong training element, while recognized as important, were largely left to others.

Analysis

Section II identified that, in the latter part of the 1990s, FAD’s TA in the PEM area stressed the importance of commitment controls as essential to controlling expenditures (see Box 3). Certainly, even in those countries where FAD has provided extensive TA on this issue, one can ask why arrears continue to be a major problem. Box 4 provides a more detailed account of the problems encountered in implementing commitment controls in one set of countries.

Although this experience may not directly apply to the other countries in the study, it does provide an illustration of the wide range of factors that appear to have contributed to the disappointing results in this area. These are detailed below.

Future options

The factors described above strike at the heart of PEM problems in Anglophone African countries. They suggest that commitment control efforts might have been better applied at the root cause of the problem. Moreover, in practice, commitment controls often cover only a small part of the budget. Important components such as wages, interest, and even spending on utilities have been excluded as “fixed” commitments. It is apparent that, for commitment control to be effective, it cannot simply be considered a technical problem, but requires the active backing of the authorities at the highest level. Often this appeared lacking and undermined the successful application of FAD’s TA in this area. Even when this backing was present, the technical problems appeared quite fundamental. Any proposed solution confronted the basic endemic problem of poor record keeping and data quality in these countries (see Section B below). Without the basic records being adequately maintained within the SMs, the task of introducing commitment reporting and controls was problematic. Also, to move from commitment recording and reporting to commitment control, although possible manually (e.g., in Uganda), ideally requires computerization, which has proved difficult to introduce in the African context (also discussed below).

Given this general environment, what should FAD’s approach be?

Before advancing on establishing a CCS, a review of four main aspects of the expenditure control problem should be undertaken.

• First, an assessment should be made of the realism of budget estimates on which commitments will be based and, if they are not credible, FAD should refrain from emphasizing a CCS as a solution. Rather, the focus should be on improved budget preparation.

• Second, an assessment should be made of the quality of the cash planning that underlies the cash release system. If deficient, it should be strengthened before a CCS is put in place.

• Third, an assessment should be made of whether it is possible to identify and monitor the present stock of arrears, and to develop reporting mechanisms that will capture the incurrence of new arrears.

• Fourth, there should be adequate assurances of political commitment to enforce accountability, so that if AOs are discovered to be deficient in their responsibilities they will be sanctioned.

All of these requirements should be viewed as components of an effective CCS. If deficient, these aspects should be strengthened simultaneously, or even viewed as preconditions, for the introduction of a CCS.

Analysis

As indicated from the above review of FAD’s TA inputs, much of the work has focused on improving fiscal data and its reporting. The experience of the countries reviewed in this study would suggest that perhaps the problems in this area have tended to be underestimated.

The disappointing record in this area largely reflects the fact that poor fiscal reporting stems from weaknesses throughout the PEM system (see Box 5). This diffusion of contributing factors is difficult to address when central reporting of different stages of the expenditure process requires inputs from many units. Inevitably, there has been a relative paucity of resources directed to this underlying problem. The responsibility for delivering any reform has to be the SM’s—and, in the past, a sufficient volume of TA resources was not directed there. In many cases, FAD’s TA was applied to improving procedures in the OAG. However, at this central level, the focus was mainly on the last stage of spending—cash transactions and their reconciliation with bank accounts. A single FAD TA advisor placed at the center, in the MOF, could not be considered as adequate to address this problem.

Unfortunately, often other donors have not seen the value in applying resources at this stage of the spending cycle. Inputs provided by other donors tend to be aimed mostly at more “upstream,” and probably less resource-intensive, reforms in budget preparation (see Malawi). A major effort is required to promote greater donor participation in building up capacity in the SMs to strengthen data recording and reporting and in establishing solid internal management controls. The focus of FAD’s TA in fiscal reporting, and some examples of its application, is reviewed in Box 6.

Responding to fiscal reporting needs from a short-term perspective

The question has been raised that by concentrating on data quality and fiscal reporting FAD may have adopted a short-sighted “Band-Aid” approach to this problem. Could we have taken a more structural approach that would have yielded more sustained improvements?

Future options

If we examine the usual problems confronted in the African context when attempting to improve fiscal reporting, their causes are so diverse that they cover almost all PEM areas. It could be argued that any effective solution to data reporting problems must be sought in addressing the fundamentals, not the symptoms. This could be viewed as a medium- to long-term solution running counter to the Fund’s short-term data requirements and program orientation. At the same time, the short-term need of the area department for reasonably reliable data cannot be ignored. What is the basic minimum interim solution to a country’s data problems that must be established before addressing required longer-term reforms?

First, support should be provided to the area department in ensuring that the coverage of fiscal reports meets the requirements of the Fund’s program. In terms of HIPC countries, this means the ability to track poverty-related spending, even if it takes place at lower levels of government.

Second, assistance should be provided in setting up reporting mechanisms for tracking the level of arrears, and subsidiary procedures are needed to allow an audit of at least the most substantial of these arrears. Given their interrelation, care should be taken to include both expenditure and tax arrears.

Third, some benchmark procedures should be put in place to assure some basic minimum level in the data quality reached. This will involve procedures for

• Checking that the government bank accounts included in the fiscal reports match those for the government sector in the monetary survey.

• Closing all below-the-line accounts used for evading financial controls.

• Reconciling changes in debt stocks with financing flows.

• Reconciling accounting ledger data with bank account records.

In addressing weaknesses in the accounting system that underlies the fiscal reporting system, there are two particular areas that should be focused on:

Stress the importance of the accounting function. An essential element in good reporting is timely record keeping and accounting in the SMs and the OAG. Clearly, government accounting has been an important focus of FAD TA. Even so, perhaps FAD could play a more proactive role in stressing to MOF managers the importance of the accounting function. The aim should be to counter the tendency often found in the Anglophone African system for the OAG to be the “poor relative” of the MOF’s top management, or else divorced from direct MOF involvement.

Stress the timelier closing of accounts. The weakness of the accounting function has been manifested in many Anglophone African countries by the failure to close government accounts in a timely fashion after the fiscal year ends. This is a widespread problem in Africa, and has led FAD to provide recent technical support to complete this task (e.g., in The Gambia and Lesotho). This approach could be regarded as too downstream, yet at the same time, it addresses area department program needs. Given the importance of closing accounts to ensure the quality and timeliness of fiscal data, perhaps FAD should develop a general position on how to treat lack of production of historical accounts. This would involve a twofold approach: an immediate injection of TA to help close the accounts, and a strategy to strengthen the OAGs to prevent a recurrence of the problem—that is, a combination of downstream and upstream technical advice.

Computerization cannot be the solution if fundamental preconditions are lacking

Since the accounting system is the backbone of the IFMIS, to successfully develop an IFMIS, accounting procedures must be adequate. Often, there is a low level of computer literacy in the country, which must first be built up before such projects are truly viable, especially when applied government-wide. A computerized system’s greater reliance on communications systems, which are admittedly poor in Africa, may be another constraint. Also, the Anglophone system may be at a disadvantage in this regard, since it is more difficult to computerize a system that has spread between OAGs and SMs. Thus, while IFMISs may be the medium-term solution to many PEM problems, it is most important to be realistic about the time horizon in which they can be implemented.

Leadership of politicians and top bureaucrats is weak

To get IFMIS reforms accepted, decision makers must be sold the idea that the benefits exceed risk. However, officials tend to be risk averse—introducing computer technology is an innovation that is perceived as risky. It is complex, it demands skilled staff, and it needs procedural changes. There is plenty of evidence of past failure. At the same time, decision makers often lack the necessary background: the information technology (IT) is usually introduced by expatriates, so there is room for distrust, even hostility. Second, decision makers must be convinced it is needed—that is, that the problem exists and, therefore, is in need of reform. Basing a reform on conditions imposed by donors, as has sometimes been the case in Africa, does not increase the success rate. Third, decision makers should recognize the urgency of the reform or the need for prompt implementation—often this perception is lacking at the top.

Institutional constraints must be overcome

The introduction of an IFMIS is not just a technical effort; it is a change in the traditional way of “doing business.” Hence, the reform of business practices should be a top priority, but too often there exists a blind belief that computers will solve all problems. For an IFMIS project to succeed, substantial groundwork is needed to standardize and modify the manual procedures, including documentation used and procedural rules across all ministries, and redesignation and strengthening of internal controls, to provide the basis for an enduring system design. As a result, while computerization significantly improves data processing, the greatest benefit may simply be in improving the manual system. The introduction of computers and the discipline of data processing tend to highlight the incompleteness of a manual system. Accordingly, it makes sense to first strengthen the manual accounting system, with minimal electronic data processing. A robust manual system promotes a robust computerized system by providing an accurate paper trail that encourages accountability.

Project management and coordination mechanisms must be strengthened

In the African context, available information is often inadequate as a basis for sound IFMIS project decisions. A leading cause of this inadequacy is more fundamental: the lack of capacity within implementing agencies. Senior staff in bureaucracies of African countries rarely delegate responsibility and frequently are overloaded with work. They lack the time and resources to lead reform even if they accept the need. To be successful, the IFMIS should not place extensive demands on the overburdened senior staff. Often, in the past, this has not been the case. While there is no doubt that the MOF should take a lead as the central agency, other ministries should also be given the opportunity for full participation in system development.

Often it is not sufficiently recognized that adequate training efforts are necessary to gain the SM finance managers’ acceptance of the reforms. In Anglophone Africa, an added problem has been that such IFMIS projects have been centered in OAGs, which, as previously indicated, are often a little disconnected from other MOF departments (see Section I).

Time frames adopted need to be feasible and realistic

In the past, there has been a tendency to tell those in top management what they want to hear. This is reinforced by their short political time horizon when judging reform payoffs. The time and cost estimates for all types of computer system development and installation have almost universally been understated, partly due to the red tape of development agency bureaucracies, coupled with delays inherent in the implementation of IT systems. Moreover, the latter is magnified by the human resource shortages faced by these countries, so that it will take them much longer to introduce IT systems than in more advanced countries—experience suggests perhaps two to three times as long.

Ensure IFMIS projects involve users

Owing to the lack of local IT expertise, there has been a tendency to leave system development to private consultants or the computer supplier, with little user involvement. Hence, no user expertise is developed in utilizing, maintaining, or modifying the system. Often this is reinforced by inappropriate or nonexistent user manuals, and typically not enough emphasis has been placed on documentation, nor on training based on that documentation.

More time should be spent on the design phase

The functional requirements document that serves as the blueprint for later phases of the system project is critical—if wrong, it is difficult to remedy the situation later. Requirements analysis is important but tends to be an often neglected step. It also takes time: a detailed analysis can take three months to a year for the accounting function alone.

While it is important to appreciate the problems faced in their implementation, it is also important to be aware of the dangers IFMIS projects can pose. Concentrating on IT solutions may have undermined manual systems (e.g., in The Gambia and Ghana). In Malawi, the slow implementation of the IFMIS project was a recurrent issue and problem throughout the stay of FAD’s advisors; while in many respects it is a case study in failure, at the same time, it absorbed much of authorities’ as well as experts’ efforts. The experience of Malawi is one that has been unfolding elsewhere, with FAD’s advisors identifying problems after the fact (with consultants’ products, with poor pilots, etc.). In The Gambia, for example, an unrealistic delivery date for the IFMIS actually closed down the manual general ledger entries. In some cases the need to support such projects has most likely detracted from the advisor’s effectiveness in other areas.

Future strategy

Having recognized the magnitude of the problems TA faces in this area, it would also appear that FAD has little choice but to be involved in such projects for some time. The IFMISs will remain important to a longer-term PEM reform agenda, and FAD should be involved if only to avoid the problems that could arise if they are poorly designed and implemented. The question concerns the optimal way of getting involved in their development. Most important for FAD’s TA is that, even if they are accepted as a longer-term solution, the IFMISs do not address the problem of the interim period of, say, four to five years prior to the full implementation of the IFMIS. In this period, FAD’s role should be to see that the present accounting and reporting systems are maintained, and business practices in the MOF are adjusted to function in the new computerized environment, and to ensure that the desired functionality of the IFMIS is incorporated in its design.

Certainly, given the time frame of such reform, FAD needs to be particularly cautious in the commitment of TA in this area. FAD’s role is, therefore, proposed to be along the following lines:

• First, before offering support, a judgment should be made that the preconditions are suitable: the commitment of top managers and adequate project management capability and coordination mechanisms.

• Second, a well-defined exit point should be established. Broadly, there are three stages of the IFMIS: design, adoption, and institutionalization. Design involves determining the information needs of the client and developing user-friendly software that will process the information and produce the necessary reports. At the adoption stage, the computerized system operates parallel to manual systems, and it is important to ensure that the system performs as expected and any required modifications are made. Institutionalization is the point at which the computer system is fully combined with government financial operations and is fully managed and operated by government staff. It is recommended that FAD participate in only the initial design and testing stage.

• Third, in that design work FAD should pay attention to key concerns—namely, it should ensure that there is a reform of work practices and that the project is not simply computerizing the existing procedures; that the accounting core of the IFMIS is sound and will generate the information required for MOF management and fiscal analysis; that the general functionality requirements are comprehensive enough to accommodate not just present but also future needs; and that the timetable for implementation is realistic.

Has the MTEF undermined more basic work in budget preparation?

It seems clear that FAD’s work in the budget preparation area has been dwarfed in the period under review by the promotion of the MTEFs by the World Bank (see Table 3). Most of FAD’s usual advice in this area has been subsumed into, and overshadowed by, the MTEF process. In this process, FAD has made valuable, but limited contributions—for example, in budget classification in Malawi and Tanzania, in the reorganization and strengthening of functions of the Ministry of Finance and Planning in Kenya, and in the introduction of top-down ceilings and more realistic costing of expenditure policies in Uganda. However, for FAD’s future work there are some deeper questions regarding the impact of the MTEFs and their sustainability.

Table 3.

Medium-Term Expenditure Frameworks in Selected African Countries

Source: Le Houerou and Taliercio (2002).Note: Budget offices and ministries of finance are referred to generically.

Table 3.

Medium-Term Expenditure Frameworks in Selected African Countries

Country	Scope	Format	Government Levels	Length of Period	Budget Process Status	Management Structure	Dissemination
Ghana	Nominally all sectors included Recurrent and capital expenditures included	Economic, functional, and organizational classifications	Primarily central (though some extension to subnational level)	Three years	MTEF is formally part of budget process Not subject to formal approval by either cabinet or parliament	MOF manages process Macroeconomic working group prepares Macro-fiscal Framework (MFF) Ministries prepare Sectoral Economic Frameworks (SEFs) No civil society input	Disseminated as part of budget
Kenya	Nominally all sectors included Recurrent and capital expenditures included	Economic, functional, and organizational classifications	Central only	Three years	MTEF released a few months before budget approved Cabinet approves MTEF and sends to parliament for approval	MTEF Secretariat coordinates process Macroeconomic working group prepares MFF Sector working groups (six) prepare SEFs No formal civil society input	Disseminated internally by MOF Dissemination to parliament raises profile of MTEF
Malawi	Nominally all sectors included Recurrent and capital expenditures included (though separate capital budget)	Functional classification	Central only	Three years	Not yet fully implemented into budget process Not submitted to cabinet for approval	Budget office manages MTEF process Sectoral participation is minimal No civil society input	Internal dissemination No external dissemination
Rwanda	Nominally 15 (out of 20) ministries included Recurrent expenditures only (capital in separate budget)	Functional classification	Central and regional (prefecture) levels	Three years	MTEF has not yet been fully integrated into the budget process (timing problems) In 2001 MTEF is to replace old budget process MTEF approved by cabinet as part of the Budget Framework Paper (BFP)	MTEF Design and Implementation Group (DIG) manages process; headed by budget office and includes other MOF directors Ministerial budget committees prepare SEFs (only half of ministries have committees) No civil society input	Disseminated internally by DIG No external dissemination
Tanzania	Seven sectors included (education, health, water, roads, agriculture, judiciary, land) Recurrent and capital expenditures included (though separate capital budget)	Economic, organizational, and functional (subsector) classifications	Central only	Three years (Public expenditure review as of January 2001)	MTEF not completely integrated into FY1999/2000 budget process (Public Expenditure Review [PER] 1/01), though situation has improved recently MTEF not formally submitted to cabinet or parliament	MOF, supported by PER working group, manages process Budget guidelines committee, supported by macroeconomic group, prepares MFF Sector working groups prepare SEFs Working groups are composed of government officials, donors, international financial institutions, academia, private sector, giving civil society official status in the process	MTEF is discussed in detail in the PER consultative meetings and minutes are circulated as part of the PER
Uganda	All eight sectors included Recurrent and capital expenditures included	Economic, functional, and organizational (major spending agencies) classifications	Central and local (as of 2000) levels	Three years	MTEF is integral part of the budget process Presented as part of the BFP BFP approved by cabinet and parliament	MOF manages process Participatory process of arriving at sector ceilings through "budget workshops" MOF macro unit prepares MFF Sector working groups (composed of sector specialists, MOF, World Bank, donors, nongovernmental organizations) develop SEFs Formal civil society input	Disseminated internally through working groups Disseminated externally through parliament

Source: Le Houerou and Taliercio (2002).Note: Budget offices and ministries of finance are referred to generically.

View Table

Table 3.

Medium-Term Expenditure Frameworks in Selected African Countries

Country	Scope	Format	Government Levels	Length of Period	Budget Process Status	Management Structure	Dissemination
Ghana	Nominally all sectors included Recurrent and capital expenditures included	Economic, functional, and organizational classifications	Primarily central (though some extension to subnational level)	Three years	MTEF is formally part of budget process Not subject to formal approval by either cabinet or parliament	MOF manages process Macroeconomic working group prepares Macro-fiscal Framework (MFF) Ministries prepare Sectoral Economic Frameworks (SEFs) No civil society input	Disseminated as part of budget
Kenya	Nominally all sectors included Recurrent and capital expenditures included	Economic, functional, and organizational classifications	Central only	Three years	MTEF released a few months before budget approved Cabinet approves MTEF and sends to parliament for approval	MTEF Secretariat coordinates process Macroeconomic working group prepares MFF Sector working groups (six) prepare SEFs No formal civil society input	Disseminated internally by MOF Dissemination to parliament raises profile of MTEF
Malawi	Nominally all sectors included Recurrent and capital expenditures included (though separate capital budget)	Functional classification	Central only	Three years	Not yet fully implemented into budget process Not submitted to cabinet for approval	Budget office manages MTEF process Sectoral participation is minimal No civil society input	Internal dissemination No external dissemination
Rwanda	Nominally 15 (out of 20) ministries included Recurrent expenditures only (capital in separate budget)	Functional classification	Central and regional (prefecture) levels	Three years	MTEF has not yet been fully integrated into the budget process (timing problems) In 2001 MTEF is to replace old budget process MTEF approved by cabinet as part of the Budget Framework Paper (BFP)	MTEF Design and Implementation Group (DIG) manages process; headed by budget office and includes other MOF directors Ministerial budget committees prepare SEFs (only half of ministries have committees) No civil society input	Disseminated internally by DIG No external dissemination
Tanzania	Seven sectors included (education, health, water, roads, agriculture, judiciary, land) Recurrent and capital expenditures included (though separate capital budget)	Economic, organizational, and functional (subsector) classifications	Central only	Three years (Public expenditure review as of January 2001)	MTEF not completely integrated into FY1999/2000 budget process (Public Expenditure Review [PER] 1/01), though situation has improved recently MTEF not formally submitted to cabinet or parliament	MOF, supported by PER working group, manages process Budget guidelines committee, supported by macroeconomic group, prepares MFF Sector working groups prepare SEFs Working groups are composed of government officials, donors, international financial institutions, academia, private sector, giving civil society official status in the process	MTEF is discussed in detail in the PER consultative meetings and minutes are circulated as part of the PER
Uganda	All eight sectors included Recurrent and capital expenditures included	Economic, functional, and organizational (major spending agencies) classifications	Central and local (as of 2000) levels	Three years	MTEF is integral part of the budget process Presented as part of the BFP BFP approved by cabinet and parliament	MOF manages process Participatory process of arriving at sector ceilings through "budget workshops" MOF macro unit prepares MFF Sector working groups (composed of sector specialists, MOF, World Bank, donors, nongovernmental organizations) develop SEFs Formal civil society input	Disseminated internally through working groups Disseminated externally through parliament

Source: Le Houerou and Taliercio (2002).Note: Budget offices and ministries of finance are referred to generically.

This section analyzes whether MTEFs can be implemented in advance of basic capabilities in budget execution, reporting, and cash management. If the answer is negative, the potential impact of FAD’s TA in support of MTEFs would be ineffective. The World Bank has been promoting MTEFs in most African countries. This has replaced the previous emphasis on Public Investment Programs (PIPs), which have fallen from favor in recognition of the dangers of separating recurrent and development expenditures in overall expenditure plans. The MTEFs have received even more attention in the context of integrating the PRSPs into a coherent multiyear public expenditure program. Recently, the value of MTEFs in the African context has been questioned, even within the World Bank. It is beginning to be recognized that in countries where other key aspects of budget management remain weak, an MTEF alone cannot deliver improved PEM. In some country contexts, MTEFs are suspected of being counterproductive, diverting attention away from more basic reforms and tying up limited administrative capacity.

The key attraction of the MTEF is its approach to integrating the top-down resource envelope with bottom-up sector programs (or SEFs). The sector review presupposes either a program-based budget structure or, at least, detailed functional and organizational budget classification systems. Often the functional basis of the budget is not adequate, so that not much can be said about intrasectoral resource allocation. Moreover, for most African countries, the focus has been exclusively on the central government level, despite an increasing trend for fiscal decentralization in the majority of these countries. Sometimes, the MTEF exists as a parallel exercise rather than being integrated into the budget process. The result is that it is difficult to fully operationalize the theoretical design, or fully implement MTEFs, which then consequently remain partial in their approach. Moreover, at best, the MTEF represents a reform of budget preparation, or the preparation of the government’s socioeconomic plan. However, it could be argued that key issues in African countries revolve around budget execution, reporting, and expenditure controls. If isolated from these other reforms, the MTEF cannot deliver what it is supposed to deliver and the government’s socioeconomic plan cannot be implemented (see Box 8).

Options for FAD’s TA

If it is believed that MTEFs are useful and here to stay, then the question of how they should be integrated into the larger PEM reform program should be addressed. If their ultimate usefulness is doubted, they will die like the PIPs before them, and FAD should not expend its limited resources on them but return to basic budget preparation work. This would help to develop macroeconomic policy and analysis capacity; improve budget classification; improve the realism of budget estimates, enhancing forecasting capabilities and the systems that provide the relevant information within government; and assist in the integration of recurrent and development budgets. On balance, the latter approach is favored in this report, based on experience regarding the best sequencing of reforms and the presumption that MTEFs should be anchored in solid budget preparation techniques. Since the latter are often lacking or weak, this report takes the position that the ultimate viability of the MTEF approach is not proven for any but the most advanced developing countries. For those countries that appear to have viable MTEFs, FAD should be involved, especially in ensuring that the process generates suitable overall envelopes to ensure macroeconomic stability. For the other countries, FAD should return to the more basic “nuts-and-bolts” work on budget preparation previously indicated—for example, to ensure an adequate economic and functional basis for the budget.

Fiscal decentralization

Decentralization of government operations is an increasing trend in all of Africa, not just in Anglophone African countries. Since the mid-1980s, most African countries started to transfer responsibilities and resources to subnational governments (see Table 4). Despite this trend, in terms of TA in the PEM area, FAD has made only a limited contribution thus far: Tanzania (mission), Uganda (mission and resident advisor for two years), and, quite recently, Ethiopia (two missions). The main attempt to address the specific PEM issues in Uganda, through TA provided by an advisor, yielded limited success.

FAD did confront directly the scope of the problems created by decentralization when examining the means of tracking poverty-related spending through the HIPC AAP (Assessment and Action Plan) exercise. This examination identified a need for the central government to develop reporting and monitoring mechanisms for decentralized expenditures. However, the more general problem of what can be expected to be delivered from one advisor centrally located in the MOF in addressing this issue remains to be determined. Given the resource implications, obviously FAD needs to be very selective, say, focusing on a few issues—reporting, consolidation problems of budgets—and leaving the rest of this very large area to others. The following provides a brief review of the main issues.

While some Anglophone African countries are only beginning to adopt legislation required for this move to decentralize government operations, others have progressed much further—for example, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda. This was largely precipitated by a return to democracy for some countries, but other factors have played a part. Donors promoted decentralization as a practical way of reaching the poor, and bringing government services to neglected areas of the country, whereas before they had been concentrated in urban areas, particularly in the capital city. At the same time, this is seen as an important step toward better governance away from administrative centralization operating within nondemocratic political regimes that in most cases were unaccountable and corrupt.

Most of these countries have low levels of tax collection and large central government deficits, and, even with decentralization, the level of services supplied by lower-level governments can be expected to be very low. However, the World Bank has argued that with decentralization, information to target services will be superior and will make them more effective. Local monitoring will increase awareness of local needs and keep local officials on their toes. There are some doubters, however, who point to the deadweight cost of different layers of bureaucracy, which may be greater than the centralized bureaucracy that they replaced (or more likely they have been added to that central bureaucracy). Services produced at the local level may have a tendency to increase personnel costs, and there is some empirical evidence that, with decentralization, wages begin to absorb a larger share of total expenditures.

Table 4.

Decentralization in Selected African Countries: Institutional and Political Reforms

Source: See Brosio (2000).

Table 4.

Decentralization in Selected African Countries: Institutional and Political Reforms

Countries	Institutional Reform	Political Reform	Functional Responsibilities	Revenue	Decentralization (Percentage of Subnational Expenditure in Total Public Expenditure)
		A. AFRITAC Countries
Eritrea	Quite centralized: a central government and local government. Municipalities are under LGs.	1995, 1997: major restructuring of the local level.	Education, health, agriculture, trade and industry, public works, courts.	LGs are supported entirely by the central budget and have no taxing rights. Municipalities do have some meager revenues.
Ethiopia	Introduced federal system (Proclamations of 1992/93 and Constitutions of 1994).	Introduced elections of regional councils (last one in 1995).	Education, health, and roads transferred to regions.	Introduced revenue sharing.	45 percent (1995/96).
Kenya	Has a highly centralized system. No decentralization process is on the agenda.
Rwanda	Centralized system.	Elections of submunicipalities held in March 1999.
Tanzania	Reinstated in 1984 a two-tiered system based on urban and rural authorities. Intends to strengthen local government (Government Reform Agenda, 1996–2000).	Has held local elections since 1983.	Locals governments (LGs) have typical urban services, plus primary schools, health, development and physical planning.	Property, business, fuel, and other minor taxes	N.A.
		B. Other Selected Countries
Botswana	Districts (9); town councils (5).	Holds local elections.	Primary education, urban services, rural roads, minor development projects.	LG tax (personal income tax), school fees, and grants (7 percent of central government expected in 1990).	N.A.
The Gambia	Recently returned to democracy with multiparty elections.
Ghana	Replaced (1989) deconcentrated system with a decentralized one: districts (110); regions (10) are still deconcentrated.	Introduced elections in Districts (since 1988).	Regions coordinate with districts for typical urban services, local roads, primary education, and health.	Property tax, minor taxes, fees. Central government transfers. District Assembly Common Fund (at least 5 percent of domestic tax revenue).	Approximately 10 percent.
Malawi	Introduced (law of 1998) decentralized system based on districts, cities, towns, and municipal assemblies.	Intends to introduce elections of assemblies after September 2000.	LGs have typical urban services, plus primary schools, health, development, and physical planning.	Property taxes, fees, ceded revenues, block grants of no less than 5 percent of national revenue, distributed on selected criteria.	N.A.
Namibia	Regions (13); local authorities.	Holds elections for regional councils and local authorities.	Typical local services, local roads, electricity distribution.	Share of property taxes, electricity and water fees, and central transfers.	13.6 percent (1993/94).
Nigeria	Has a federal system. States have been increased to 36. 774 municipalities. Federal capital territory: Abuja.	Introduced elections of state and local councils.	Education, health, and welfare to states. Typical urban services to municipalities.	Revenue sharing: 24 percent of federation revenue to states; 20 percent to LGs. VAT: 50/50 to states and LGs.	States: 12.6 percent (1998) LGs: 3.9 percent (1998).
Sierra Leone	Intended to proceed to a reform of its decentralized system but civil war delayed plan.	Intended to introduce elections of districts councils, but prevented by conflict.
South Africa	Constitution of 1996 introduced a quasi-federal system: Provinces (9); local government (800 to 300).	Introduced elections of municipal and provincial councils (1994 and 1999).	Education, health, and welfare to provinces. Typical urban services to municipalities.	No major taxes to provinces. Introduced unconditional grant for provinces. Property and business taxes to municipalities.	50 percent (1998/99).
Zimbabwe	Has a deconcentrated system with 8 provinces and a decentralized one based on Urban and Rural Districts (57 have been created by amalgamation in 1987).	Holds local elections regularly.	Typical urban services, plus health care services to districts.	Property tax, vehicle tax, poll tax, fees account for most of revenue (similar to South Africa).	20 percent (early 1990s).

Source: See Brosio (2000).

View Table

Table 4.

Decentralization in Selected African Countries: Institutional and Political Reforms

Countries	Institutional Reform	Political Reform	Functional Responsibilities	Revenue	Decentralization (Percentage of Subnational Expenditure in Total Public Expenditure)
		A. AFRITAC Countries
Eritrea	Quite centralized: a central government and local government. Municipalities are under LGs.	1995, 1997: major restructuring of the local level.	Education, health, agriculture, trade and industry, public works, courts.	LGs are supported entirely by the central budget and have no taxing rights. Municipalities do have some meager revenues.
Ethiopia	Introduced federal system (Proclamations of 1992/93 and Constitutions of 1994).	Introduced elections of regional councils (last one in 1995).	Education, health, and roads transferred to regions.	Introduced revenue sharing.	45 percent (1995/96).
Kenya	Has a highly centralized system. No decentralization process is on the agenda.
Rwanda	Centralized system.	Elections of submunicipalities held in March 1999.
Tanzania	Reinstated in 1984 a two-tiered system based on urban and rural authorities. Intends to strengthen local government (Government Reform Agenda, 1996–2000).	Has held local elections since 1983.	Locals governments (LGs) have typical urban services, plus primary schools, health, development and physical planning.	Property, business, fuel, and other minor taxes	N.A.
		B. Other Selected Countries
Botswana	Districts (9); town councils (5).	Holds local elections.	Primary education, urban services, rural roads, minor development projects.	LG tax (personal income tax), school fees, and grants (7 percent of central government expected in 1990).	N.A.
The Gambia	Recently returned to democracy with multiparty elections.
Ghana	Replaced (1989) deconcentrated system with a decentralized one: districts (110); regions (10) are still deconcentrated.	Introduced elections in Districts (since 1988).	Regions coordinate with districts for typical urban services, local roads, primary education, and health.	Property tax, minor taxes, fees. Central government transfers. District Assembly Common Fund (at least 5 percent of domestic tax revenue).	Approximately 10 percent.
Malawi	Introduced (law of 1998) decentralized system based on districts, cities, towns, and municipal assemblies.	Intends to introduce elections of assemblies after September 2000.	LGs have typical urban services, plus primary schools, health, development, and physical planning.	Property taxes, fees, ceded revenues, block grants of no less than 5 percent of national revenue, distributed on selected criteria.	N.A.
Namibia	Regions (13); local authorities.	Holds elections for regional councils and local authorities.	Typical local services, local roads, electricity distribution.	Share of property taxes, electricity and water fees, and central transfers.	13.6 percent (1993/94).
Nigeria	Has a federal system. States have been increased to 36. 774 municipalities. Federal capital territory: Abuja.	Introduced elections of state and local councils.	Education, health, and welfare to states. Typical urban services to municipalities.	Revenue sharing: 24 percent of federation revenue to states; 20 percent to LGs. VAT: 50/50 to states and LGs.	States: 12.6 percent (1998) LGs: 3.9 percent (1998).
Sierra Leone	Intended to proceed to a reform of its decentralized system but civil war delayed plan.	Intended to introduce elections of districts councils, but prevented by conflict.
South Africa	Constitution of 1996 introduced a quasi-federal system: Provinces (9); local government (800 to 300).	Introduced elections of municipal and provincial councils (1994 and 1999).	Education, health, and welfare to provinces. Typical urban services to municipalities.	No major taxes to provinces. Introduced unconditional grant for provinces. Property and business taxes to municipalities.	50 percent (1998/99).
Zimbabwe	Has a deconcentrated system with 8 provinces and a decentralized one based on Urban and Rural Districts (57 have been created by amalgamation in 1987).	Holds local elections regularly.	Typical urban services, plus health care services to districts.	Property tax, vehicle tax, poll tax, fees account for most of revenue (similar to South Africa).	20 percent (early 1990s).

Source: See Brosio (2000).

In some countries, a substantial share of subnational expenditures is covered by donors. If it is not well managed, this creates problems: expenditures tend to be concentrated in some “favored” regions, raising interregional equity issues; they tend not to be well coordinated with central and subnational recipient government budgets; and no allowance is made for the recurrent cost implications of investments. Part of the information problem is insufficient reporting of donors’ operations at the local level to the central government and often insufficient recording by subnational governments of these expenditures. One approach would be to include donors’ contributions in the country’s general-purpose, unconditional transfers system, so that the transfer to each region is adjusted by the amounts it receives from donors.

Tax effort—as measured by the share of taxes in GDP—is generally low in Africa and concentrated heavily on foreign trade, with weak tax administration. Typically, this implies that the only tax sources for subnational governments are user charges and property taxes. In the absence of substantial new tax sources, huge vertical imbalances are likely. As a consequence, transfers will be an important part of the decentralization picture, at least in the near future. It will be important that their distribution formulas take into account the actual budget implications of devolution of functions and, at the same time, address the problem of reduction of disparity in poverty levels among areas. Specific purpose grants are difficult to employ because of the greater administrative capacity required.

There is a general problem of establishing reporting systems to provide information to meet the various needs of the users on subnational government operations. In particular, in the context of HIPC debt relief, there will be the need to assess the extent to which government expenditures at all levels are pro-poor. The authorities will have to produce consolidated budget reports, which are one of the trigger points for reaching the HIPC completion points.

It is recommended that FAD’s approach be selective in this area

First, the focus should not be policy-oriented—for instance, finding the right mix of transfer and own revenue assignments or the most appropriate division of expenditure responsibilities should be left to others in FAD, or other TA providers. Rather, in PEM TA, the focus should be on how the PEM system can allow effective fiscal control to be exercised across general government. It should:

• Facilitate efficient and effective execution of expenditure responsibilities at the subnational level.

• Ensure that the central government’s responsibility in macroeconomic management is not compromised.

Second, within this overall framework, the following approach should be considered:

• In the short term, improve coverage, timeliness, and consolidation of fiscal plans and reports to enable them to meet the HIPC-reporting commitments. In this context, an effective medium-term planning function that incorporates expenditures at the local level is important.

• Ensure that a consolidated budget in a standard format can be constructed. This should include adequate detail on revenues and expenditures, using GFS classification principles, and incorporating all external assistance. This requires a common chart of accounts and budget classification.

• Rationalize the financial management systems at the subnational levels: standardize accounting procedures, consolidate bank accounts to a subnational TSA, and incorporate extrabudgetary fiscal operations in the budgets. It will be essential to clearly account for the fiscal flows between tiers of government.

• Support regular in-year and end-year reporting from all subnational governments and EBFs to ensure overall expenditure and borrowing control. This is also important when central transfers are conditional. It is therefore necessary to ensure that adequate procedures are in place and that data are routinely provided to determine central transfers to subnational units.

• Ensure that a suitable legal framework and associated regulations are put in place to support the fiscal decentralization process.

Internal audit

Internal management control systems describe a range of management tools aimed at different broad objectives: first and foremost, to ensure compliance with laws and regulations; second, to ensure the reliability of financial data and reports; and, third, to facilitate the efficiency and effectiveness of government operations.¹⁸ In this way, a sound internal control framework is designed to assure the public that these operations attain some basic fiduciary standards. As such, internal controls can be regarded as one of the foundations of good governance in a country, the first line of defense against improprieties, and as providing the public with “reasonable assurance” that if they do occur they will be made transparent and appropriately addressed. In such safeguards the government’s internal audit function has always been viewed as central.

The Anglophone African countries inherited a budget management model that allows some flexibility in internal audit arrangements. The internal audit function is usually established in accordance with the powers and functions bestowed upon the treasury with regard to the responsibility for management, supervision, control, and direction of all matters related to the financial affairs of the government. The internal audit function can be viewed as support to the MOF, assisting it in the monitoring of compliance by ministries and departments with various financial regulations, instructions, and accounting procedures. Alternatively, it can be viewed as assisting all levels of management in the effective discharge of their responsibilities through the submission of reports on their examinations and, when justified, appropriate action-oriented recommendations for corrective action. The demarcation between these views depends on the importance attached to the delegated responsibility given to AOs.

Many Anglophone African countries have adopted a quite centralized approach to internal audit. Kenya, Malawi, and Uganda can be classified in this group, though in Malawi internal audit is very weak and is still in the process of being established. The MOF has an office of internal audit, which has a centrally managed cadre of auditors. These internal auditors are posted in the ministries but their personnel are based in the MOF and their work is managed there. The report of the internal auditor is given to the ministry AO and to the MOF. For example, in Kenya internal auditors report directly to the Office of the Internal Auditor General (IAG) in the MOF, with copies sent to their AO. Their work programs are determined by the IAG, and are funded from the IAG’s budget. Unlike other centrally administered cadres seconded to the ministries, the ministry views the internal auditors as part of the MOF administration. In the Nigerian federal government, internal auditors are part of the same service as accountants under the Accountant General of the Federation, and are posted to the various line ministries. Recently, a central inspectorate was created in the Accountant General’s office to supervise this work.

In other Anglophone African countries, internal auditors are envisaged as providing the AO with a service and are part of his management team. They report directly to the AO and only provide copies to the MOF. In this way, they are on par with the other MOF centralized cadres seconded to ministries. In South Africa and Ghana,¹⁹ internal auditors are recruited and managed by the ministries, with no central MOF guidance or control on the internal auditors. There is always a certain tension in the Anglophone system arising from the need to strike a balance between the centralized responsibilities of the MOF and the internal management requirements of the AO. Over time, some of these countries, such as Kenya, have oscillated between the centralized inspectorate approach and the decentralized service approach.

Whatever the model employed, there is ample evidence, as previously indicated in Section I, that this important function is in need of strengthening. FAD’s country experience strongly suggests that the management of the internal audit function is critical to its effectiveness but it is often weak and suffers from poor work practices, lack of planning and personnel management, and little support from the external audit. Despite the importance of internal audit as a fundamental element of PEM, it is clear that in many of the countries in this sample adequate resourcing for the function has often been neglected.

FAD’s advice in this area should be at the strategic end of TA in the design and development of the internal audit function. This will involve a number of dimensions:

• A clear and agreed upon definition of the internal auditors’ tasks.

This is a way of clarifying the place of the internal audit function in the work of the budget institution, dispelling ambiguities and avoiding disputes when the internal auditor carries out these tasks.

• Establishment of line ministry audit committees.

These should be formed from the top management of the institution and technical experts in the accounting and budget fields. The aim is to act as a steering committee for the work of internal audit, identifying problems as well as the corrective or preventive action. Not only does this act to strengthen the role of internal audit within the agency in enforcing financial discipline, but it also places some distance between the agency’s regular operations and internal audit evaluations.

• A central audit committee in the MOF. Similarly, to enforce this distance from day-to-day management and offer some external support, a central audit committee in the MOF should review the findings of the internal audit units and pursue remedial action. Another possible mechanism is to have outside professionals perform an independent external review of internal audit practices every two or three years, countering any tendency for agency managers to interfere with the internal audit function.

• Clear demarcation of responsibilities in relation to external audit. In some ways, this can be addressed by a clear and well-documented definition of the duties of internal auditors. At the same time, the relationship between the two functions should be recognized as symbiotic—it is important for the internal audit that there be a strong external audit, and vice versa. The external audit should use the work of the internal audit, and the latter should be guided by the findings of the external audit.

• Restructuring work practices. A strategic decision to be made in many Anglophone African countries is where best to deploy scarce audit skills. Ways to economize on the use of these scarce audit resources include the following:

• Prioritize to extend the scope of the internal audit. Improved work practices, say by moving away from extensive pre-audit of vouchers to a sampling approach, can often offer significant savings, as can improved management of the audit function through focusing on priority areas and the key weaknesses identified. One typical weakness that may benefit from internal audit review is the adequacy and effectiveness of internal controls in the existing systems. New systems should also be evaluated.

• Create special teams. In examining the internal audit function in Anglophone African countries, it is not unusual to discover that there are many functions that are either not being performed or the coverage of which is superficial because of inadequate staff, lack of specialized skills, and so on. Often the most productive use of limited audit staff is in special central teams earmarked for conducting audits in government agencies with the assistance of internal audit staff already stationed there.

• Formulate work plans more efficiently. Existing operational standards for internal audit require that the internal auditor adequately plan, control, and record his work. Such planning should be done not only for individual audit assignments but also for varying time periods such as a quarter, a year, and even longer periods.

Debt management

The HIPC initiative recently has reemphasized the importance of debt management in developing countries. Insufficient attention to debt management has been argued as being a significant factor contributing to the accumulation of unsustainable levels of debt in these countries. The assessments undertaken by the World Bank and the IMF reinforced the need to strengthen the debt management capacity in HIPCs. The assessments identified weaknesses in the legal and institutional framework for debt management, noting in particular the lack of close coordination among the budget, cash management and financial planning functions, and debt management operations.

In African countries in general, there has been a tendency for MOFs to divorce debt management from aid management, with a different unit from the unit responsible for paying the subsequent debt service negotiating, contracting, and registering loans. Often, the management of the foreign debt has been separated institutionally from domestic debt, and, in many countries the central bank has played an important role in both. It is not uncommon for central banks to take an active role in debt servicing, calculating the amount due in debt service and debiting the government account. Unfortunately, the role of the central bank as a fiscal agent and as manager of monetary policy sometimes is not distinguished. The issuance of government paper to mop up excess liquidity is a monetary policy action, and in principle the cost of such action should be borne by the central bank and not by the government. In the distribution of responsibilities, there is often a need to distinguish between the strategic and operational aspects of debt management.

In none of the countries in the sample did FAD’s advisor have debt management as a significant aspect of his TOR, even though it was a recognized problem in some of them. Even when cash management was included in the TOR, the coordination of cash with debt management was not highlighted. There is perhaps a case for redressing this imbalance in the future.

FAD’s approach in strengthening debt management usually should follow three main steps

First, ensure that there is an effective organizational consolidation of debt and aid functions and a restructuring of tasks. Debt and aid management should be viewed as an integrated process, centered in one institution. There should be less emphasis on data processing and more on management and follow-up. These tasks should be fully integrated in government cash management, with emphasis on debt management, whose primary function is that of financing government operations at minimum cost and with the least disruption. This is accomplished by establishing a transparent and well-planned annual debt management strategy to prevent surprises in the course of budget implementation. The debt management strategy should be integrated with cash planning and hence would be better able to protect against disruption to public services.

Second, create an integrated database to track all loans, from the time of agreement through the various stages of disbursement and the associated debt service payments. This should allow full reconciliation with bank statements and should be able to generate standard and diagnostic reports on all aspects of government loans and debt, including on-lending and guarantees. In Anglophone Africa, the World Bank and the Commonwealth Secretariat have developed such software and have assisted countries in introducing it.

Third, using such a database, the government’s debt management skills should be upgraded. This typically requires improved methods of debt contracting, risk analysis (including contingent liabilities), improved controls, and follow-up on on-lending agreements and government guarantees. In addition, there is also usually a need to develop effective procedures to handle commodity aid, direct payments to suppliers, and reimbursements so that they are fully accounted for and adequately managed.

Legal framework

The Anglophone African countries generally inherited a legal framework, often called the Accounts and Audit Act, which provided a simplified view of the obligations of various participants in the budget process, usually supplemented with a wide range of financial regulations. Over time, layers of financial regulations have often obscured and even overtaken the basic legal framework. As the operations of government have expanded, and the presidential system of government has become more pronounced, many of these countries have sought to change their basic legislation. South Africa was first, followed by Tanzania (Public Finance Management Act, 2000), Malawi (in the process of revising its law), Sierra Leone (recently submitted a draft organic budget law to the legislature), and The Gambia and Rwanda (seriously considering establishing a completely new legal framework). Uganda’s MTEF framework was introduced by a 2000 law.

What should FAD’s approach be?

This report largely supports FAD’s past approach in this area, to actively encourage and assist in reforming the legal and institutional bases of budget management in the Anglophone African countries. When drafting organic budget laws, among other issues, special provisions need to be made to balance the fiscal powers between the legislative and the executive branches, and to ensure consistency with fiscal democracy and transparency principles. These include the timely submission of the budget to parliament, enhanced data presentation in the budget documents, and the rationalization of appropriation structures with a view to increasing legislations’ power in the original appropriations and virements during the year. The new legislation should prohibit the initiation of unbudgeted expenditures by the executive branch in the course of budget execution, except through supplementary appropriations. Moreover, new provisions should be made for management of different types of external grants and loans and full integration of recurrent and development budgets. Last but not least, provisions are needed to transform OAGs into modern treasury departments, fully integrated into the organizational structure of MOFs.

The need to more clearly define fiscal relationships among the different tiers of government and to strengthen macro-fiscal discipline—in some cases in response to the aforementioned trend toward fiscal decentralization—suggests that FAD could also continue to help governments redraft their legal framework, which at times could entail the adoption of fiscal responsibility legislation.

“Authorities’ commitment” has always been stressed as key—but is often difficult to gauge

Strong commitment by the MOF is essential to initiate and sustain reforms, particularly in environments where legislative scrutiny and accountability are typically weak. Even when commitment is evident in the MOF, this can sometimes be undermined by poor support from the President’s Office. Sometimes it has been clear that the real decision makers may not necessarily be the immediate counterpart to FAD’s advisors or that the counterparts do no have the full confidence of the minister. In deciding whether to initiate TA, or to continue an assignment, FAD has perpetually had to make judgment calls on whether the lack of progress is evidence of the lack of commitment or the lack of capacity, or both. On the whole, the authorities have generally been given the benefit of the doubt and FAD tended toward agreeing that there was an acceptable level of commitment. Greater emphasis on the authorities’ track record in implementing recommendations, when considering TA requests, is a new trend that should be emphasized.

However, this will remain a difficult judgment, particularly where the governance environment is unstable, where there is a high turnover of both senior policymakers and officials, and where intermittent crises may require urgent assistance and could provide a spur to the reform effort. Consequently, a more chaotic environment may require the use of more strongly enforced performance milestones, initially giving the authorities the benefit of the doubt to commence the TA, but making further support contingent on achieving a series of realistic reform milestones, which would demonstrate the authorities’ ongoing commitment.

Ensuring that capacity preconditions exist

The basis of FAD’s technical advice should be solidly grounded in what can be realistically implemented. This is a dimension that should also be more seriously considered in FAD’s TA planning. In the past, in responding to requests, FAD’s advice has often aimed to patch up deficient systems operated by weak administrations, which then proved unsustainable when FAD’s advisors left. Not only does this imply that increased attention should be paid to the development of human and institutional capacities in TA recipient countries, but it also suggests that FAD should spend more resources in diagnosing these weaknesses and in developing a strategy that is viable within such constraints.

Importance of quality and stability of counterparts

The stability, rather than the quality, of counterparts has been a continuous problem in many African countries, where the career development of public officials is viewed as giving them a variety of assignments. For example, in Malawi counterparts turned over regularly (about every 18 months). Certainly, when a strong or knowledgeable budget director or permanent secretary is in place, progress appears more noticeable and vice versa.

Perhaps not surprisingly, when wages are low and working conditions poor, so is morale. It is difficult to ignore MOF salary structures and relativities, which are often a key constraint on expanding human capacity and maintaining staff at the management level. In many countries, the incentive is for key officials to travel and supplement their low basic salaries with more generous travel allowances. Apart from remuneration, another problem is that staff training and human resources development tend to be minimal in these countries. A case can be made that in order for a country to receive a resident advisor, FAD should insist on a designated counterpart who will remain on the job at least for the duration of the advisor’s assignment, to ensure some minimal transfer of expertise.

The HIV/AIDS pandemic that is afflicting many African countries is putting a severe strain on human capacity as it tends to be most prevalent in the most economically active members of society. Of the sample countries covered in this paper, Zambia has the highest adult infection rate (21.5 percent at end-2001, according to UNAIDS), with Kenya and Malawi not far behind, at 15 percent each, and Rwanda and Tanzania following with 8.9 and 7.8 percent, respectively. Various studies have noted that this is becoming an increasingly important external constraint on efforts to build, or even maintain, administrative capacity.

Institutional change has been difficult to achieve

FAD’s TA advice has chosen to concentrate more on PEM functions than on the institutions that operationalize them. However, often it must be recognized that what can be achieved technically is constrained by existing institutional structures that need to be reformed. At the same time, it is recognized that in all countries, and not only in African ones, institutional change is difficult to bring about. For example, in Malawi, the MOF structure was identified as inappropriate early on in FAD’s TA, but despite lengthy recommendations in this area, little change was accomplished.

For most countries, it has been accepted that advisors and missions will have to work within the institutional structure available, and, accordingly, FAD has tended to focus advice on more obvious inefficiencies. For example, in human-resource-poor countries, it is undesirable to have unnecessary duplication of functions, and, in order to fully exploit information technology, usually some reorganization is required both in work practices and within institutions. While pushing at the margin, central institutional issues that have weakened PEM systems have not been adequately addressed, including, as identified previously, the institutional split between development and recurrent budgets, the lack of full integration of the OAG in the MOF, and the role of the MOF as financial manager when the President’s Office has wide financial decision-making powers.

Adopting a realistic timetable

In the past, FAD may have had unrealistic expectations of how fast reforms could be undertaken and produce results. At the same time, FAD has learned how quickly progress can be reversed. Certainly, in the African context, TA always seems to be a long-term task. This must be balanced by the fact that FAD’s resources are not infinite, and Fund programs are geared to results within a relatively short time frame. Accordingly, something of a conundrum is posed for FAD’s TA: whether to risk “placing the bar high enough to challenge” and getting no, or poor, results, or setting it at a lower level in the hope of at least making some useful short-term progress. The danger with the latter strategy is that it is possible to get trapped into a perpetual “Band-Aid” short-term approach. For some of the countries in the sample, there is a suspicion that this already is the case. Thus, there is a need to reassess the timetable for TA impact, while at the same time not neglecting to apply pressure on the authorities and FAD’s advisors to produce results.

FAD’s collaboration with other TA providers is not always well coordinated with the deliverables

In many countries of the sample, FAD has been only a minor TA provider compared with others. Often, the effectiveness of FAD’s advice has been reduced because it has been crowded out by the actions of other providers. For example, FAD’s insistence that for good cash management it is important to consolidate accounts and move to a TSA concept has often gone against donor insistence on separate project accounts for the donor’s fiduciary requirements. The focus of the World Bank on MTEF has often diverted the administration’s attention toward planning activities at the expense of more immediate budget execution problems, which were usually FAD’s primary concern. The focus on developing IFMISs has led to the premature abandonment of manual reporting systems, with a subsequent loss of information, at least in the short term, and has led us into a “Band-Aid” type of TA to improve data quality. Offering advice and technical support to a country’s authorities has often led FAD’s advisors to spend increasing amounts of their time in support of such medium-term initiatives and dissipated FAD’s central short-term advice. This approach has in many cases diverted the focus of FAD’s TA from other pressing priorities in order to respond to issues raised by other donors’ lending strategies, reinforcing the need for FAD’s recommendations to be discussed and accepted not merely by the authorities but by other TA providers and to coordinate FAD’s work more closely with theirs. Increasingly, missions and advisors have been encouraged to do this.

FAD’s lack of follow-up

Scarce resources have often resulted in a lack of follow-up to FAD’s TA advice. FAD has considered the idea of a simple follow-up letter to TA reports, sometime after the report is sent, inquiring as to the use the authorities have made of FAD’s recommendations. This has never been fully pursued, but there seems to be a very strong case for some follow-up to TA reports when there is no subsequent resident advisor. Similarly, provided conditions are right—namely, that authorities are genuinely willing, or the country is in an active Fund program—there also seems to be a case for FAD to provide regular follow-up TA when resident advisors are withdrawn. Certainly, in the case of a core group of African countries that over the years have had substantial TA from FAD and have been in and out of Fund programs, there is a clear case for more regular interaction. In this way, FAD can be made more aware of likely future TA demands and emerging problems before they reach a crisis point. This is an idea that has already been mentioned in the discussion of TA planning.

FAD’s advice often did not fit into an overall TA plan

In many ways the above issues revolve around FAD’s strategy for delivering TA in the PEM area, and evolving that strategy to make FAD’s TA more effective. Because in the past the approach has been to respond to immediate problems, and operate on more and more specific TOR for FAD’s advisor, there has been some difficulty in ensuring that the advisor’s work fitted into some overall reform plan, or TA strategy. This approach has also meant that FAD has relied on the authorities to determine the role, and set the work plans, of advisors. Often, the dangers of the resident advisors viewing their role as a hand-holding function became evident. For example, one can question whether this approach really builds capacity rather than dependence. In more than one case, after some time in a country, the advisor became virtually a top-level line official. In addition, this created the tendency of moving FAD’s TA more and more downstream. In some countries, it appears clear that a more viable long-term strategy could have been encouraged had the advisors made more of an effort to engage other TA providers who had more resources at their disposal than were available to FAD.

It also raises a more general issue of whether FAD should be aiming to hand off responsibility to other TA providers sooner. On many occasions, FAD has exhibited an ambiguous position in this regard. On the one hand, FAD recognized the need for more resources to implement recommendations and actively encouraged others’ participation. On the other hand, FAD often expressed doubts as to whether other donors could be relied upon to take up the slack in specific TA areas, the speed at which they would respond, or even the type of advice they might give. Certainly, if the country requested program-related TA, FAD’s first reaction was to try to do this with internal resources. Underlying this approach appears to be the lack of a coordinated TA plan for the country, and a lack of ongoing collaboration with other donors, that would make any handoff to other providers much smoother. The development of country-specific TA plans, in collaboration with other providers, is one area that is being pursued more rigorously, and will be discussed below.

A more comprehensive and strategic approach in planning TA

As implied above, FAD’s TA has often lacked strategic vision, especially one that was aligned to a country’s own strategic priorities. In the past, FAD’s approach has been largely determined by demand, with FAD responding to requests from the authorities for advice to meet their PEM requirements. Many of these requests were made at the instigation of the area department, so that it was possible for FAD to influence the nature of the request. However, the degree of freedom for FAD to be proactive has not been great. The result has been that, in responding to demands, the particular need that was being satisfied did not necessarily fit into any coherent plan for the development of the country’s PEM system. Moreover, there is a suspicion that, in this way, FAD’s TA tended to provide a short-term response to a particular urgent need, rather than address longer-term, and perhaps more fundamental, problems.

An essential element in improving this situation is to expend more resources in planning FAD’s TA strategy. In Fund area departments, there has already been some movement in this direction with FAD’s efforts to provide more realistic annual plans for regional TA allocation. However, to be effective, planning must be wider than this and, ideally, should be closely aligned with a country’s own broader reform strategy. The aim should be to promote a country-centered comprehensive approach to FAD’s TA delivery and, in collaboration with member countries, draw a country-specific PEM reform strategy supported by a concrete short- and medium-term reform plan. While many countries in Africa will inevitably continue to experience short-term shocks that will often require immediate TA assistance, the move toward a more strategic country-led approach should still be the focus of discussions with the country authorities to enlist their support and ownership.

Therefore, when designing assistance strategies and reviewing requests for TA, FAD needs to give more consideration to the institutional and governance environment, as well as the technical deficiencies of the PEM system. One way to address these challenges and promote ownership is to integrate PEM issues into national PRSs and supporting programs such as the PRGF. One potential mechanism for aligning TA in PEM with the national PRSs in some countries is the HIPC Assessment and Action Plan (AAP) process, conducted by the World Bank and IMF in close collaboration with the government (see Box 9 for a full description). Although the AAP was designed for a specific purpose—tracking the effectiveness of commitments made in the context of HIPC debt relief—and is not necessarily applicable to all situations, it is highly relevant to the African context, regardless of whether a country is eligible for HIPC debt relief. The AAP framework addresses many of the weaknesses identified in the management of Fund TA in the past. The AAP framework is a comprehensive diagnostic approach that takes account of the priorities and capacity of a government to assist in the design of its own PEM reform plan, incorporating all relevant donors. ²⁰ However, to ensure that the AAP (or a similar instrument) is adequately reflected in the national PRS or PRGF requires more coordination with the authorities and donors at the policy level.

In 2002, FAD initiated a series of experimental internal Fiscal Strategy Briefs (FSBs) in an effort to strengthen its internal ability to prioritize its TA program. Since then, FSBs have been prepared for 41 countries, seven of which are for countries within this review. Despite the limited time frame, early experience suggests that the FSBs may prove to be a useful instrument, in terms of both contributing to TA prioritization and strengthening FAD’s dialogue with the area departments and external partners. The FSBs have three distinctive features. First, they prioritize across traditional TA areas, as well as within each of them. Second, they involve a more proactive view of what are considered the main reform needs and provide a basis for focused discussion with the area departments and others. Third, reform priorities and needs are more clearly linked to macroeconomic and institutional vulnerabilities, which cover such aspects as the commitment and capacity of the authorities.

A more coordinated approach

By adopting a short-term and supply-on-demand approach, perhaps not enough attention was paid to ongoing TA being provided by others or broader-ranging local reform efforts. The fact is that, over recent years, there has been a substantial increase in TA provided by various donors in the PEM area, many of which have long-term reform programs or projects that have impacted FAD’s own TA provision. The need to coordinate better with other TA providers and other government initiatives has often not been fully recognized. The possibility of a duplication of effort, or of conflicting advice, was always a danger, and the obvious lack of coordination often sent conflicting signals to the authorities. Not only were TA priorities occasionally confused, but it was difficult to enforce country ownership and accountability.

To address this, and to establish countries’ ownership and responsibility for the implementation of TA advice, greater effort needs to be made to fit FAD’s TA into an overall government reform plan that allows better coordinated delivery of TA by the Fund and other TA providers. FAD’s past attempts to coordinate in the PEM area have shown that this is not easy or costless. Government institutions responsible for coordination are often extremely weak and as a relatively small provider, FAD often lacks the influence or resources to assist this coordination effort. Donors are also often responding not only to the priorities established in the country but also to those in their own headquarters.

However, as a relatively small provider, FAD should recognize that the onus is on it to promote better coordination of its efforts with others. In this FAD is somewhat handicapped. Typically the large providers, often running large-scale programs and projects, have important and influential field offices that direct their TA. For an IMF division in Washington this presents substantial coordination problems and extra costs.

One approach that has some potential in addressing the problem of local coordination is the regional approach of the African technical assistance centers (AFRITACs), which offer FAD the opportunity to liaise with governments and other TA donors on an ongoing basis in the field through regional advisors. It should also help to promote sharing technical best practices and other lessons of PEM reform within the region. The first AFRITAC was set up in Tanzania in November 2002, followed the next year by an AFRITAC in West Africa. The role of the AFRITACs will soon be subject to external evaluation that will allow firmer conclusions on whether this approach can satisfy these coordination needs.

Enhanced headquarters management of TA

Adopting a more strategic approach to TA delivery and better coordinating with other providers, in turn, has important implications for the role of FAD headquarters in TA delivery. Often, in the past, FAD headquarters’ support has been viewed as primarily technical, focused on backstopping expert advice in the field. The approach envisaged here would require much more effort at headquarters in the planning of TA and in the coordination efforts with other donors. Substantially more resources will need to be invested in oversight and support from headquarters to ensure that implementation of TA advice is timely, effective, and compatible with that of other providers.

At the same time it will require greater investment in managing TA, especially the human resource element. It has been noted that the TA provided to this group of countries has been primarily through the assignment of resident advisors. The preponderance of advisors indicates that one of the important aspects of FAD’s TA has been the work at headquarters in recruiting, backstopping, and managing these advisors to maintain the quality of TA advice. Throughout the period, FAD has tightened this quality assurance in a number of ways.

The first assurance of quality has always been to attempt to recruit only the best advisors. FAD has made a substantial effort to ensure that each potential advisor is enlisted onto the panel of experts only after being interviewed by senior FAD staff in the same discipline, and has been offered an advisor’s position only after having been tried out on mission. Second, there has been an increasing tightening of the advisor’s TOR. The inclusion of the country authorities and area departments has been encouraged in drafting the TOR, as has the trend to clarify the areas of focus, and expected outputs, of the assignment. This has allowed the TOR to be more easily translated into detailed work plans against which TA progress can be monitored. Third, the importance of backstopping has been increasingly stressed, and alternates have been assigned primary backstoppers to act on behalf of advisors who are traveling. The discipline of monthly reporting by the advisors was enforced, as was the attempt to cut down on the lag in responding to their reports.

In addition, the practice of inspecting advisors was enhanced, so that the standard time was shortened from annually to six months. Moreover, to give a fresh and less-biased view of the work, the inspection was carried out by staff other than the backstopper. Recently the role of advisors and their backstoppers and a clear statement of their respective responsibilities was incorporated into FAD’s TA manual. Fourth, an annual review of advisor performance was introduced, to allow the backstoppers to undertake a systematic assessment of each advisor’s performance in relation to his or her output objectives. Typically, this involved some ex post evaluation of the reasons for success and failure, which often gave rise to some corrective measures. Cases where there was clear evidence of under-performance led to early termination of the advisor’s contract.

Despite this system of internal controls, not all advisors performed as expected. In reviewing the individual country experiences, performance was mixed. Perhaps this is not surprising. In the African environment the advisor’s job is not an easy one. With a joint subordination to the authorities and the IMF, the advisor is officially employed by the IMF but is the authorities’ advisor and, as such, is expected to provide them with the best advice. Implicitly it is assumed that there will be no conflict between this duty and the obligation of reporting to the IMF, but in reality there are many gray areas where advisors risk their longer-term relationship with the authorities by being seen as too much of an agent for implementing Fund program conditionality or as inflexible in not supporting initiatives that the IMF opposed.

In countries with weak administrative capacity it is undoubtedly difficult to maintain an advisory role at all times—that is, in assisting counterparts in carrying out their line duties and not replacing them. In the absence of suitable counterparts, some advisors definitely drifted toward the latter approach and had to be corrected by their backstoppers. In this environment, the past experience of the advisors—especially in the context of developing countries—appeared critical. Often, advisors with much stronger qualifications on paper but without this type of experience proved disappointing. Similarly, those less technically qualified but with good “people skills” did much better than expected. It is difficult to separate such intangible factors in judging the quality of the advisor’s TA advice.

However, there are obvious areas for improvement. FAD should spend more time and resources in the recruitment process. This has in the past been considered a task to be carried out back-to-back with other work, as a sideline rather than important in its own right. Moreover, recruitment has become increasingly important as the available pool of advisor talent has been tapped into by other TA providers, including the private consulting firms that have expanded their work in the PEM area. Bilateral TA has also increased in this area, so OECD nationals are increasingly recruited by their own governments for TA. FAD must work harder and invest more in maintaining its roster of fiscal experts.

Second, there is still room for tightening the backstopping function, following trends that are already visible—for example, increasing the focus of TORs, formulating more detailed advisor work plans, and updating according to discussions with the authorities. There is room for increased contact with the advisor by telephone and electronic means.²¹ Other options include in-field workshops with several resident advisors to discuss common problems and their solutions, and perhaps also with their counterparts to ensure better feedback from the authorities. Rather than inspection missions, more frequent backup missions could monitor and evaluate progress and set new work plans. This would reinforce the status of the advisor in the eyes of the authorities and, by increasing the authorities’ dialogue with FAD, enhance ownership. There is also room for strengthening the contacts between the backstopper and an FAD economist and the area department team. Last, but not least, more frequent in-depth reviews of FAD’s TA, like this study, followed by specific TA country strategies, seem called for to improve the quality of TA advice.

Selectively getting involved in new areas

With limited resources, there is no large margin for FAD to undertake more extensive TA. Nonetheless this study has highlighted additional areas of PEM that have grown in importance over the last decade. FAD could consider addressing these priorities only if they are considered to be urgent and of strategic importance to achieving broader macroeconomic goals, such as those set out in the PRSP; if firm country ownership can be demonstrated; or if TA gaps develop because there are no other donors. Under these conditions, three areas have been identified as possible candidates for more extensive TA:

(1) Decentralization issues, with a focus on Fund program needs:

• Ensure that the country’s intergovernmental relations are designed to allow efficient execution of all expenditure responsibilities, and macroeconomic management is not compromised.

• Allow countries to meet HIPC-reporting commitments.

• Ensure that a consolidated budget in a standard format can be constructed.

• Rationalize and standardize financial management functions at the subnational level.

• Ensure regular in- and end-year reporting from all subnational governments.

• Ensure that adequate data reporting and procedures are in place to determine and execute central transfers to subnational levels.

Ultimately, to meet these needs, it is recognized that good budget formulation and execution processes need to be developed at the subnational level. However, given FAD’s resources, it can only expect to have a minimal direct input at this level.

(2) Internal audit:

• Clarify and strengthen internal audit tasks.

• Introduce supporting institutional arrangements.

• Restructure work practices to increase audit effectiveness.

(3) Debt management, especially for HIPC countries:

• Assure an effective organizational consolidation of debt and aid functions, and corresponding restructuring of tasks.

• Create an integrated database to track all loans, including on-lending, from the time of agreement through debt service payments.

• Use such a database to promote debt management skills (debt contracting; risk analysis; improved controls, especially on on-lending; guarantees; commodity aid; and reimbursements).

Concluding observation

Overall, the approaches outlined imply a more regular interaction with client countries than has been the case in the past, with the aim of diagnosing emerging problems and providing more focused interventions before problems reach crisis proportions. To be effective, this regular interaction should be coordinated with other providers and nested in an overall country TA strategy, in which the country authorities display ownership.

Some of the adaptations just described will add to costs. Given the overall resource constraints, they may therefore need to be accompanied by greater selectivity in responding to new requests—that is, providing assistance to a smaller number of countries in any given period but with a larger commitment to each country served.