WASHINGTON, April 22, 2017—Today the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the governments of France, Norway, and Switzerland reconfirmed their support for the next five year phase of a program to help improve financial management of public resources in developing countries. 

The Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability program—PEFA—aims to promote government-led, evidence-based analysis to help countries improve how they manage and collect available resources, and deliver services to the public in an efficient and sustainable way.

This renewed commitment from the PEFA partners will provide more than USD 10 million between 2017 and 2022 for the program, and includes contributions of over USD 5.3 million (€ 5 million) from the European Commission and USD 4 million (CHF 4 million) from Switzerland over five years; and USD 256,000 (NOK 2.2 million) from Norway in the first year. The funds will be used to maintain the performance assessment framework, provide technical advice, training and knowledge services to countries using PEFA. The funding will also strengthen the ability of PEFA users to engage in the public finance management reform dialogue and continue to push for improvements over the next five years. 

Partner quotes

“The PEFA program has been a very effective tool to help our client countries assess public financial management performance,” said Jan Walliser, World Bank Vice President for Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions. “This new phase will place additional emphasis on using PEFA to learn from past reform experiences and ensure that these experiences are shared widely.”

 “PEFA will play a crucial role in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Since its inception it has helped the EU to support public finance management reforms in partner countries, which allows them to collect more domestic revenue and spend it better for poverty reduction and socio-economic development. As the EU has ongoing budget support commitments with partner countries worth €12.8 billion, this is a key priority,” said Stefano Manservisi, Director-General for International Cooperation and Development at the European Commission.

“We are pleased to join our development partners in supporting PEFA that has become the golden standard of diagnostic tools for assessing the strengths and weaknesses of local PFM systems,” added the Swiss Government Federal Councilor Johann N. Schneider-Ammann. “The spirit of PEFA is very much aligned with Switzerland’s own experience, which underlines the importance of strong institutions and federalism for ensuring fiscal discipline and good public service delivery.”

“PEFA is an important mechanism for measuring the transparency, accountability and effectiveness of public finances. It has proven to be effective in helping governments to identify and monitor necessary improvements in financial management performance for more than 15 years. We look forward to continued success of the program during the new phase,” said Bjørn Brede Hansen, Director of Economic Relations and Development, Norway Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“PEFA has successfully achieved its two goals: strengthening the donor coordination and improving the development countries’ ownership. France is delighted to reaffirm its commitment to the program and to push forward the ability of this internationally recognized tool to optimally assess public finance management in countries belonging to diverse administrative and legal heritage,” said Cyrille Pierre, Director of Sustainable Development, French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Development.

“The PEFA program remains highly relevant to the IMF’s Fiscal Affairs Department’s objectives of helping countries to modernize their fiscal policies and institutions by identifying gaps and highlighting areas to be improved in core PFM systems. We recognize the important role that PEFA plays and we also appreciate how the program complements diagnostic tools developed by the IMF to assess fiscal transparency and public investment efficiency. The Fiscal Affairs Department has been involved in the PEFA program, as one of the original partners, since its inception in 2001, and we look forward to continuing our support and further strengthening our working relationship with the PEFA Secretariat and other program partners during phase 5 of the program,” said Sanjeev Gupta, Deputy Director of the Fiscal Affairs Department of the IMF.

Background

PEFA is a partnership between the World Bank, IMF, European Union, and the governments of France, Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. It was established in 2001 as a means to provide a common assessment tool for public financial management and to develop a shared data base. Its aim is to provide governments with a reliable, robust, evidence-based assessment tool to analyze and guide improvement in public financial management. The program is managed by a small secretariat in Washington DC which supports the PEFA steering committee comprising the seven PEFA partner organizations. 

Contacts

In Washington: Rachel Winter Jones, + 1 202 446-8196, rjones1@worldbank.org