Author: Robert P. Beschel, Jr.
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 0821395297
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 225

View

Book Description
"Part I, Overview and summary, June 2010."

Author: Robert P. Beschel
Publisher:
ISBN: 9786613581877
Category : Finance, Public
Languages : en
Pages : 224

View

Book Description
One of the most important functions governments perform is that of mobilizing and deploying financial resources to achieve their objectives. According to the most recent World Bank data, governments throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region spent approximately 407 billion dollars in 2007 in delivering their policy, regulatory and service functions. The way in which this money is spent has huge implications for their broader development trajectory. For governments to perform their spending function well, their PFM practices should meet certain well-established criteria. Governm.

Author: Robert P. Beschel
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815736983
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 328

View

Book Description
Critical examinations of efforts to make governments more efficient and responsive Political upheavals and civil wars in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have obscured efforts by many countries in the region to reform their public sectors. Unwieldy, unresponsive—and often corrupt—governments across the region have faced new pressure, not least from their publics, to improve the quality of public services and open up their decisionmaking processes. Some of these reform efforts were under way and at least partly successful before the outbreak of the Arab Spring in 2010. Reform efforts have continued in some countries despite the many upheavals since then. This book offers a comprehensive assessment of a wide range of reform efforts in nine countries. In six cases the reforms targeted core systems of government: Jordan's restructuring of cabinet operations, the Palestinian Authority's revision of public financial management, Morocco's voluntary retirement program, human resource management reforms in Lebanon, an e-governance initiative in Dubai, and attempts to improve transparency in Tunisia. Five other reform efforts tackled line departments of government, among them Egypt's attempt to improve tax collection and Saudi Arabia's work to improve service delivery and bill collection. Some of these reform efforts were more successful than others. This book examines both the good and the bad, looking not only at what each reform accomplished but at how it was implemented. The result is a series of useful lessons on how public sector reforms can be adopted in MENA.

Author: Robert P. Beschel
Publisher: World Bank
ISBN: 9780821386095
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 320

View

Book Description
This book explores the issues and challenges involved in public sector reform in the Middle East and North Africa region by examining ten case studies of the most successful and/or interesting reforms that have been attempted during the past decade. The cases span a range of countries, including Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and the West Bank and Gaza. These include reforms to core systems and processes, such as cabinet coordination mechanisms, public financial management, and civil service reform, as well as regulatory and service delivery improvements in line departments. Some were impressive successes, whereas others failed to deliver as promised. Taken together, these cases offer a host of important lessons from which future reformers in both the Middle East and elsewhere can benefit. The book also discusses the unique issues and challenges confronting governance and public sector reform in the region and the implications for future reforms in the wake of the recent changes gripping the region.

Author: Mr.Carlo A. Sdralevich
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1498348467
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 130

View

Book Description
In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries price subsidies are common, especially on food and fuels. However, these are neither well targeted nor cost effective as a social protection tool, often benefiting mainly the better off instead of the poor and vulnerable. This paper explores the challenges of replacing generalized price subsidies with more equitable social safety net instruments, including the short-term inflationary effects, and describes the features of successful subsidy reforms.

Author: Ahmet Faruk Aysan
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 0530161214
Category : Accountability
Languages : en
Pages : 65

View

Book Description
"This paper addresses the issue of the low level of private investment in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, with special emphasis on the role of governance. Based on the existing literature, the authors categorize what types of governance institutions are more detrimental to entrepreneurial investments. They then estimate a simultaneous model of private investment and governance quality where economic policies concurrently explain both variables. The empirical results show that governance plays a significant role in private investment decisions. This result is particularly true in the case of "administrative quality" in the form of control of corruption, bureaucratic quality, investment-friendly profile of administration, and law and order, as well as for "political stability." Evidence in favor of "public accountability" seems, however, less robust. The estimations also stress that structural reforms-such as financial development and trade openness-and human development affect private investment decisions directly, and/or through their positive impact on governance. These findings bring new empirical evidence on the subject of private investment in the developing world and in MENA countries in particular. "--World Bank web site.

Author: Racheeda Boukezia
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 64

View

Book Description
Countries in the Middle East and North Africa are exposed to significant fiscal risks. This paper analyzes the sources of these fiscal risks in 17 low- and middle-income countries in the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan region, excluding high-income Gulf countries (MENAPEG), and discusses avenues for reform to strengthen fiscal risk management. The materialization of fiscal risks in MENAPEG has been driven by macroeconomic shocks, contingent liabilities, and tail-risk events. The region has a track record of volatile economic growth and sharp exchange rate movements. High dependence on hydrocarbon revenue among MENAPEG oil and gas exporters and pervasive universal subsidies generate considerable budgetary exposure to swings in commodity prices. Substantial government involvement in the economy and large state ownership of firms and banks exposes several MENAPEG countries to contingent liabilities from state-owned enterprises and the financial sector. Lastly, the region’s history of social unrest and conflicts together with tail-risk events such as the recent COVID-19 pandemic, and natural disasters and climate change, have been important sources of fiscal risks. Many of the factors historically associated with the materialization of fiscal risks in MENAPEG countries are likely to remain sources of vulnerability in the future, raising the need for robust fiscal risk management frameworks. Policy reform can strengthen fiscal risk management in MENAPEG. This paper describes precedents where progress is made and provides a broad analytical framework for policymakers to build upon to fully embrace fiscal risk management in all its dimensions. Going forward, it is crucial for national authorities to enhance their capacity to identify, quantify, and assess risk factors and their budget’s exposure to them. This should be followed by thorough fiscal risk analysis to inform policy decisions to mitigate risks. Where risks cannot be mitigated or are judged to be acceptable, countries should consider adopting appropriate medium-term fiscal frameworks to build buffers to deal with them.

Author: Mr. Ernesto Ramirez Rigo
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1513594087
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 153

View

Book Description
Prior to the COVID-19 shock, the key challenge facing policymakers in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia region was how to generate strong, sustainable, job-rich, inclusive growth. Post-COVID-19, this challenge has only grown given the additional reduction in fiscal space due to the crisis and the increased need to support the recovery. The sizable state-owned enterprise (SOE) footprint in the region, together with its cost to the government, call for revisiting the SOE sector to help open fiscal space and look for growth opportunities.

Author: Jens Kromann Kristensen
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 146481466X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 168

View

Book Description
This project, based on the Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) data set, researched how PEFA can be used to shape policy development in public financial management (PFM) and other major relevant policy areas such as anticorruption, revenue mobilization, political economy analysis, and fragile states. The report explores what shapes the PFM system in low- and middle-income countries by examining the relationship between political institutions and the quality of the PFM system. Although the report finds some evidence that multiple political parties in control of the legislature is associated with better PFM performance, the report finds the need to further refine and test the theories on the relationship between political institutions and PFM. The report addresses the question of the outcomes of PFM systems, distinguishing between fragile and nonfragile states. It finds that better PFM performance is associated with more reliable budgets in terms of expenditure composition in fragile states, but not aggregate budget credibility. Moreover, in contrast to existing studies, it finds no evidence that PFM quality matters for deficit and debt ratios, irrespective of whether a country is fragile or not. The report also explores the relationship between perceptions of corruption and PFM performance. It finds strong evidence of a relationship between better PFM performance and improvements in perceptions of corruption. It also finds that PFM reforms associated with better controls have a stronger relationship with improvements in perceptions of corruption compared to PFM reforms associated with more transparency. The last chapter looks at the relationship between PEFA indicators for revenue administration and domestic resource mobilization. It focuses on the credible use of penalties for noncompliance as a proxy for the type of political commitment required to improve tax performance. The analysis shows that countries that credibly enforce penalties for noncompliance collect more taxes on average.

Author: Mr.Carlo A Sdralevich
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1498350437
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 130

View

Book Description
In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries price subsidies are common, especially on food and fuels. However, these are neither well targeted nor cost effective as a social protection tool, often benefiting mainly the better off instead of the poor and vulnerable. This paper explores the challenges of replacing generalized price subsidies with more equitable social safety net instruments, including the short-term inflationary effects, and describes the features of successful subsidy reforms.