Topic Guide: Public Financial Management

International Monetary Fund. www.imf.org  

The IMF supports its 188 member countries by providing: a) policy advice to governments and central banks; b) research, statistics, forecasts and analysis; c) loans to help countries overcome economic difficulties; and d) technical assistance and training. In the field of PFM, the IMF provides technical assistance to develop fiscal policy and management, tax and customs policies and administration, budget formulation, expenditure management, design of social safety nets, and management of domestic and foreign debt.  

World Bank. www.worldbank.org  

The World Bank is one of the largest donors supporting PFM reform programmes worldwide. In addition to loan and grant funding, the World Bank and the World Bank Institute offer expertise, a global network of practitioners, and learning tools to support PFM and anti-corruption reform.  

Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. www.oecd.org  

The OECD supports PFM and anti-corruption reform in several formats. The work in the area budgeting and public expenditures provides reviews of country systems, standards and practice guidelines, and meeting and exchange platforms for the 34 OECD member states (with some outreach activities to also cover non-member states). The work in the area development delivers tools, analysis and databases, and assessments and methodologies to support donor agencies to foster good governance, including sound PFM and anti-corruption (along with other objectives) worldwide.  

Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency. http://fiscaltransparency.net/  

GIFT, initiated in July 2011, is a multi-stakeholder action network working to advance and institutionalise global norms and significant, continuous improvements on fiscal transparency, participation and accountability in countries around the world. GIFT involves the World Bank, IMF, governments (such as Brazil and the Philippines), and civil society organisations, like the Centre for Public Integrity (CIP)-Mozambique, FUNDAR-Mexico, Greenpeace International, ONE, and the International Budget Partnership. GIFT has developed high-level principles on fiscal transparency and, together with the International Budget Partnership and the governments of Brazil and of the Philippines, leads the fiscal openness working group of the Open Government Partnership.  

Open Government Partnership (OGP). http://www.opengovpartnership.org/sites/default/files/attachments/FOWG%20Draft%20Workplan.pdf  

The OGP is a multilateral initiative that aims to secure concrete commitments from governments to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption and harness new technologies to strengthen governance. It was launched in 2011 and, since then, has grown from 8 to 65 participating countries. In all of these countries, government and civil society are working together to develop and implement ambitious open government reforms. For several topics, the OGP has established dedicated working groups. These currently include: a fiscal openness working group, a legislative openness working group, an access to information working group, an open data working group, and an openness in natural resources working group.  

International Budget Partnership (IBP). www.internationalbudget.org  

The IBP works to fight poverty and improve governance by reforming government budget systems and influencing budget policies. It promotes efforts to make government budgeting more transparent and participatory, more responsive to national priorities, better able to resist corruption, and more efficient and effective. The IBP provides technical and financial assistance, comparative research opportunities, information exchange and peer networking. The IBP’s website is a clearing house of information, resources and publications on government budget transparency and accountability. It shows how civil society and citizens can use budget analysis to influence budget policies and to monitor implementation to ensure that public funds are used effectively to meet the needs of the people, especially the poor. The website provides access to the open budget index (OBI), an index related to budget transparency which, in its 2012 issue, covered 100 countries.